Analytic Tools: The Levels of Analysis

The idea of "levels of analysis" is one of the most powerful tools sociologists have for understanding our web of social relations. It allows us to understand what motivates our actions, the impacts of those actions on others, and a slew of other phenomena that crop up in sociological studies. This will be an important part of this course, so you would do well to know these and utilize them as best you can.

 

Individual (Micro)

Focuses on aspects of individual experience that bring them to act and interact in a certain way

Explores personal experience, modes of learning, issues of identity, personal attitudes

Looks at how individuals live their lives: the tools we use for getting through each day, how we come to be who we are, how we learn to act and interact, our self-conception, and individual identity

Presumes that individuals are the product of our interactions with others and of our particular place in social structures

Presumes that individuals also impact on others through their interactions, and can impact social structures through changing their interactions


Interactional (Meso)

Focuses on the ways in which we come into contact and interact with others

Focuses only on how this interaction proceeds, not on the individuals who engage in the interaction

Looks at process of interaction: the tools used in our contacts with others, the ways in which these tools are deployed, and the ways in which interactions are changed by the deployment of these tools

Presumes that interactions are impacted by individual attitudes, and are manifestations of structural phenomena

Presumes that interactions also impact on individual self-conceptions and attitudes and on social structures

Structural (Macro)

Focuses on social institutions, patterns of social behavior, aggregates of acting and interacting individuals

Focuses only on patterns, processes, hierarchies, institutions, and generalized social phenomena

Looks at the social space: the ways in which social actions are collected into patterns, the way those patterns are transmitted to everyone in society, and the reproduction and/or change of those patterns

Presumes that social structures are transmitted through interactions to individuals, who enact those structures

Presumes that structures also can be impacted by individuals and/or subgroups who act in ways different than already-existing structures