Symbolic Interactionism

A sociological tradition, associated with Herbert Blumer and the Chicago School following George Herbert Mead, that understands social reality as constructed through ongoing interaction: people act toward things — including other people, technologies, and disability itself — on the basis of the meanings those things come to hold through shared practice. Goffman's related work on stigma, impression management, and the 'presentation of self' extended this tradition to disclosure, passing, and covering, which are central concerns in accessibility research. Symbolic interactionism gives HCI a vocabulary for analysing how assistive devices 'mean' different things in different situations, how disabled users negotiate identity and audience design, and why the social effects of a technology cannot be predicted from its technical function alone.