The Myth of the Independent Variable: Reconceptualizing Class, Gender, Race, and Age as Subcultural Processes

Abstract

Although social class, religion, gender, ethnicity and age are often treated as independent variables (e.g., factors, forces, structures) and invoked as causal explanations for various outcomes, this paper approaches these constructs in more distinctive, humanly-engaged terms. Rather than representing forces that almost mysteriously impose themselves on people, these constructs are to be understood more fundamentally as the products and processes of human group life. We are not denying the linkages of social categories with other aspects of community life but contend that these correlates represent comparatively superficial reflections of the much broader underlying sets of processes that characterize social life. Indeed, we argue that it is these sets of humanly engaged social processes rather than correlational research that constitute the more authentic subject matter of the social sciences.In his engaging text, The Faultline of Consciousness, Maines (2001) makes the claim that interactionist thought has, in various ways and guises, entered into and been absorbed by mainstream sociology. He writes:The old dichotomies that once organized sociological discourse, and especially how sociologists framed their characterizations of sociology, are happily eroding.... Across the board, greater emphasis is placed on agency, on groups actively dealing with situations that confront them, on the limitations of totalizing theories, on historical processes, on the processual character of structures, and on the significance of meaning in sociological description and explanation (Maines 2001, 25).

Examining Community Life “in the Making”: Emile Durkheim’s Moral Education

“…For more comprehensive considerations of interactionist analysis, seeMead (1934),Blumer (1969),Strauss (1993),Prus (1996Prus ( , 1997Prus ( , 1999Prus ( , 2007cPrus ( , 2007d,Prus and Grills (2003), andGrills and Prus (2008) …”

Ethnographic Comparisons, Complexities and Conceptualities: Generic Social Processes and the Pragmatic Accomplishment of Group Life

“…Typically expressed as variables or factors, these categorizations and their connections may be simplistic, inaccurate, and inauthentic, if not also notably mythical (Grills and Prus 2008). Nevertheless, they still represent ways of giving an order to aspects of community life.…”

Sociology and the Mix Tape: A Metaphor of Creativity

“…Some disparage the assumptions inherent in our dependence on variables (Grills and Prus 2008) while others offer tools to reimagine the process of doing sociology. Andrew Abbott (2001Abbott ( , 2004Abbott ( , 2005Abbott ( , 2007 aims to improve the creativity, appeal and discourse within sociology while pushing out the boundaries of the discipline.…”