Riding the Elevator: An Ethnomethodological "Exploriment" of Social Norms in Everyday Life

• In Event: 378 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session II
  In Refereed Roundtable: B. Table 14. Microsociology

Abstract

The problem of understanding how social order is constructed is an old one. Ethnomethodology is particularly concerned with studying the normative organization of ordinary life as central to the construction of social order. Garfinkel (1963, 1967) and other ethnomethodologists created experiements with norm breaching to understand the effects of social norms by disrupting them. We applied an ethnomethodological approach to create what we call an “exploriment,” where students both experiment and explore the effects of social norms in mundane activities like riding an elevator. Our goal is for students to hone their skills as social observers, to notice the ways that social norms limit their perceptions, as well as to engage more deeply with social theory as they apply it to understand their experiences with the exploriment. In this paper, we analyze students’ insights into the ubiquitous nature of social norms from Durkheimian, Parsonian, and ethnomethodological perspectives

Authors

• Sara Schoonmaker, University of Redlands

• Bernard McGrane, Chapman University