the more you invest yourself in something, the more committed you tend to be to it.

Birging

“The past generation whistled their way in the dark, and you will face even more uncertainty.  Even the pursuit of social ambition as a goal is less possible as the prestige of class distinction fades, and people are socially left to teeter.”  Did you notice that Randall Collins picked up this theme? 

Goffman trusted direct observation of social life and was wary of sole dependence on verbal testimony as a basis for sociological analysis, evident in sociology’s heavy reliance on the interview. This is conveyed very clearly in Goffman’s 1974 talk on method, later published from a bootlegged tape: ‘I don’t give hardly any weight to what people say, but I try to triangulate what they’re saying with events’ (1989: 131). Such ‘naturalistic study’ required observing social conduct as it occurs, in its natural social setting. It might involve sustained spells of fi eldwork using the method of participant observation, but naturalistic observation also covers the many chance observations Goffman witnessed in his daily

y position will be that the lesson that other societies-let alone other species-teach us has not yet been formulated soundly enough to provide us a warranted text to use for instructional purposes, and I propose to restrict myself to the here and now.

Every society seems to develop its own conception of what is "essential" to, and characteristic of, the two sex classes, this conception embracing both praised and dispraised attributes. Here are ideals of masculinity and feminini- ty, understandings about ultimate human nature which provide grounds (at least in Western society) for identifying the whole of the person, and provide also a source of accounts that can be drawn on in a million ways to excuse, justify, explain, or disapprove the behavior of an individual or the arrange- ment under which he lives, these accounts being given both by the individual who is accounted for and by such others as have found reason to account for him.

sex classe

de facto

This nurse seemed to take initiative, although she appeared to be shy and with- drawn, unlike the head nurses on the medi- cal wards who happened to have a more outgoing personality.

Schools hav e to dea l wit h a particularly critical audience.Accordingly, on e Ž nds numerous an d often very inventive ‘opting-out’ strategies ineducational interactions—tha t all mak e use of perception, and of the perception ofperception. Pupils ar e continually engaged in reading the behaviour of their teacher.Observing whether one is bein g observed or is temporary ou t of the teacher’s sight ,hiding behind another one ’s back , pretending that one listens attentively, looking as ifeverything what is said is understood, etc.

Education is highly dependent on the dynamics of th e interaction order

. It cannot be programmed, despitethe structural an d cultural ‘groundwork’. However, the interaction re ect s these externalconditions in itsel

. Mos t pupils know the ‘ofŽ cial ’ criteria, and can judg e the teachers’behaviour accordingly. They ar e abl e to distinguish between goo d and bad , strong andweak, soft and strict teachers. ‘An y “failure” to maintain “discipline”, whatever th emotive, is in danger of bein g seen as weakness, an d thus lack of “authority” an d of bein gexploited by pupils’ (p. 112).

To the extentthat the teacher successfully imposes an asymmetrical “order” on classroom interaction,he turn s his claimed authority into a fac t to be reckoned with . By successfully demandingattention an d disciplined participation, the teachers actually “demonstrate” their com -petence as teachers, tha t theyareteachers, an d therefore their “superiority” to pupils’

he customary spatial andarchitectural arrangements—rectangular rooms, aligned benches, pupils who fac e th eteacher bu t not one another, etc.—complement this structural groundwork

The ‘groundwork’ for classroom interaction is lai d outside the classroom, an d outsidethe school

Bu t notwithstanding this organizational ‘framing’ (Goffman, 1975), interactioncannot simply be ‘instrumentalized’ for organizational purposes. It cannot simply beturned int o a means that realizes particular organizational ends (as teachers know). Onthe othe r hand, organizations create a structure for the interaction, at the leas t becauseinteraction now takes plac e between th e members of an organization. To exemplify th eimpact of the organizational setting on interaction situations, an dvice versa, someparticular characteristics of organized interaction can be indicated

I am suggesting that the act of speaking must always be referred to the state of talk that is sustained through the particular turn at talking, and that this state of talk involves a circle of others ratified as coparticipants

Cultural rules establish how individuals are to conduct themselves by virtue of being in a gathering, and these rules for commingling, when adhered to, socially organize the behavior of those in the situation.

I would define a social situation as an environment of mutual monitoring possibilities, anywhere within which an individual will find himself accessible to the naked senses of all others who are "present," and similarly find them accessible to him.

Note that it is not the attributes of social structure that are here considered, such as age and sex, but rather the value placed on these attributes as they are acknowledged in the situation current and at hand.

The latter point bears emphasizing because it reminds us that the dramaturgical self is not only a fleeting dramatic effect but also a relatively stable structural effect (Gonos 1977; Schwalbe 2013). It is a structural effect in four senses: the expressive behavior through which selves are created requires rules and conventions that tran-scend situations; selves are attributed to individu-als based in part on the roles they play in rou-tinized activity systems; selves are attributed to individuals based in part on membership in broad social categories; and for action to be taken as in-dicative of character it must be seen as volitional, which requires a sphere of autonomy within an institutional framework. The situationally imput-ed self thus depends on extra-situational features of culture and social organization

The extreme case is found in so-called ritual transmission of charisma.

This movement lays a heavy burden upon class symbols, increasing the ten- dency for signs that symbolize position to take on the role of conferring it.

The constant threat of annihilation hangs over both the in- teraction and the social selves in and through whose commitments and performances it is created and sustained: "When an incident occurs and spontaneous involvement is threatened, then reality is threatened"

For Goffman, not only is strategic interaction only one form of action, but it is quite clear that he believes an injunction against strategic interaction is embedded in the "working consen- sus."11 "When an individual senses that others are insincere or af- fected (in their assumed role), he tends to feel that they have taken unfair advantage of their communication position to pro- mote their own interests: He feels they have broken the ground rules of interaction"

"Regardless of the person's relative so- cial position, in one sense he has power over the other participants and they must rely on his considerations.

What has interactional significance, however, is my attitude toward the other members of the line and toward the order of the line itself. What tells me something, what constitutes my commitment, is not the personal end but the respect of the collective accomplishment.

If a social performance can reaffirm the moral values of the community, then its acceptability will be assessed ac- cording to the degree to which it accomplishes that affirmation.

In contrast, Goffman presents a picture of constraints on interaction that are internal to interactional scenes. He paints a picture of the emergence of social order, wherein social order and meaning require a particular interactional relation between individ- ual and group. Meaning is, according to this view, a constitutive production in and through group performance. Actions do not ac- quire their meaning primarily through a direct relation to external ends. As a consequence, Goffman states, where there is "order," there must be a "working consensus."6

Meaning is an in situ creation, not conferred by a relation to institutional givens. It is for this reason that the management of impressions is a delicate and moral affair (Goffman, 1969a:84,94, 1961a:76). Inter- actions that Sartre would call simple seriality are not devoid of hu- manity and meaning for Goffman. They are, in fact, the source of the order, meaning, and morality that we bestow on the rest of the social order

Rather, the performance has meaning, in particular a moral meaning, through its relation to the interaction within which it is played out

Goffman stresses the rights and obligations that the interac- tional performance of a role entitles one to as a performer. For Goffman the performer's access to rights and obligations is not dif- ferentially conferred on particular status positions in the social world.5 Rather, all participants in face-to-face interactions, within which these performances are brought off, have equal access to and equal protection from what Goffman variously calls a "work- ing consensus" or a "moral consensus."

The working consensus orients toward a particular definition of the situation, which includes status and roles. But for different settings there will be different definitions of the situation, some of which include status and some not. In my classroom, for instance, I can effectively maintain my social superiority by successfully performing as a teacher. Goffman is careful to point out, however, that I can do so only through the cooperation of others. When I go home on the trolley, however, the definition of the situation does not include any particular sta

Goffman (1959:30) stresses the need for the performance in order for meaning to be achieved. It is not that I must play out a certain performance because I am a tailor or a grocer but that in order to claim to be a tailor or a grocer I must perform the part:

The dramaturgical qualities of action are in a certain way parasitic;

In all these instances people are mobilized totake their places—important or minor, casual orregular, voluntary or involuntary—in a collectiveenterprise carried on in a somewhat establishedand expected way

Social capital

Henotes,forexample,thatduelingisandhasalwaysbeenalmostentirelyamaledomain.

Each field presupposes, and generates by its very functioning, the belief in the value of the stakes it offers

As a space of potential and active forces, the field is also a field of struggles aimed at preserving or transforming the configuration of these forces. Concretely, the field as a structure of objective relations of force between positions undergirds and guides the strategies whereby the occupants of these positions seek, individually or collectively to safeguard or improve their position, and to impose the principle of hierarchization most favorable to their own products. The strategies of agents depend on their position in the field, that is, in the distribution of the specific capital

Secondly, one must map out the objective structure of the relations between the positions occupied by the agents or institutions who compete for the legitimate form of specific authority of which this field in the site. And, thirdly, one must analyze the hab

the external determinations that bear on agents situated in a given field (intellectuals, artists, politicians, or construction com- panies), never apply on them directly, but only through the specific mediation of the specific forms and forces of the field, after having undergone a re-structuring that is all the more important the more auto- nomous the field, that is, the more it is capable of imposing its specific logic, the cumulative product of its specific history.

Second, within the field in question one must construct a ‘social topology’ or map of the ‘objective structure’ of the positions which make up the field, and the relationships between them in the competition for the field’s specific form of capital

politics and structure of the field shape and channel the manner in which ‘external determinations’ affect what goes on within the field, making them appear a part of the ongoing history and operation of the field itself. The more important and autonomous the field in the context of the array of fields which together constitute a ‘society’, the more this metamorphosis effect operates.

defines the situation

Positions stand in relationships of domination, subordination or equivalence (homology) to each other by virtue of the access they afford to the goods or resources (capital) which are at stake in the field.

field, in Bourdieu’s sense, is a social arena within which struggles or manoeuvres take place over specific resources or stakes and access to them. Fields are defined by the stakes which are at stake—cultural goods (life-style), housing, intellectual distinction (education), employment, land, power (politics), social class, prestige or whatever

ame commanding, aggressive, cultural capi tal that offended the teachers appealed to the LSC. With deference in the eyes of the LSC, Mrs. Kox had the symbolic power to redefine the LSCs method of principal evaluation in a way that protected her from the teachers' attacks

The dispositions acquired in the position occupied imply an adjustment to this position, what Goffman calls the "sense of one's place." It is this sense of one's place which, in interactions, leads people whom we call in French "les gens modestes," "common folks," to keep to their common place, and the others to "keep their distance," to "maintain their rank", and to "not get familiar." These strategies, it should be noted in passing, may be perfectly unconscious and take the form of what is called timidity or arrogance. In effect, social distances are inscribed in bodies or, more precisely, into the relation to the body, to language and to time-so many structural aspects of practice ignored by the subjectivist vision

One thus forgets that the truth of any interaction is never entirely to be found within the interaction as it avails itself for observation.

Thus, in a book entitled Pedagogic Relationship and Communication (Bourdieu et al. 1965), we showed how the social relation of under- standing in the classroom is constructed in and through misunderstanding, or in spite of misunderstanding; how teachers and students agree, by a sort of tacit transaction tacitly guided by the concern to minimize costs and risks, to agree on a minimal definition of the situation of communi- cation. Likewise, in another study entitled "The Categories of Professorial Judgment" (Bourdieu and de Saint Martin 1975), we tried to analyze the genesis and functioning of the categories of perception and appre- ciation through which professors construct an image of their students, of their per- formance and of their value, and (re)pro- duce, through practices of cooptation guided by the same categories, the very group of their colleagues and the faculty

I would speak of constructivist structuralism or of structuralist constructiv- ism, taking the word structuralism in a sense very different from the one it has acquired in the Saussurean or Levi-Straus- sian tradition. By structuralism or struc- turalist, I mean that there exist, within the social world itself and not only within symbolic systems (language, myths, etc.), objective structures independent of the consciousness and will of agents, which are capable of guiding and constraining their practices or their representations. By con- structivism, I mean that there is a twofold social genesis, on the one hand of the schemes of perception, thought, and action which are constitutive of what I call habitus, and on the other hand of social structures, and particularly of what I call fields and of groups, notably those we ordinarily call social classes

Situationally perceptible qual- ifications regarding age, sobriety, language ability, and solvency will have to be satisfied before individuals are allowed to hold them- selves as qualified for servic

formalizations of precedence

-in recent times blacks and women have concertedly breached segregated public places, in many cases with lasting con- sequence for access arrangements, but, all in all, without much change in the place of blacks and women in the social structur

Etiquette books are full of conceptualizations concerning the courtesies that men owe women in polite society

It is easy enough, then, and even use- ful, to specify in social structural terms who performs a given act of deference or presump- tion to whom. In the study of the interaction order, however, after saying that, one must search out who else does it to whom else, then categorize the doers with a term that covers them all, and similarly with the done to. And one must provide a technically detailed de- scription of the forms involved

In general, then, (and qualifications apart) what one finds, in modem societies at least, is a nonexclusive linkage-a "loose coupling"- between interactional practices and social structures, a collapsing of strata and structures into broader categories, the categories them- selves not corresponding one-to-one to any- thing in the structural world, a gearing as it were of various structures into interactional cogs. Or, if you will, a set of transformation rules, or a membrane selecting how various externally relevant social distinctions will be managed within the interaction

local envi- ronments can easily be manipulated so as to produce them.

when individuals are in one another's immedi- ate presence are well designed to serve as micro-ecological metaphors, summaries and iconic symbols of structural arrangements- whether wanted or not

"contact rituals," namely, perfunctory, brief expressions occurring incidental to everyday action-in passing as it were

enuated that a periodic celebration is all that we are prepared to commit to them; so what they index is not our social reality but our nostalgia, our bad conscience, and our linger- ing piety in regard to what is no longer binding. (When friends remove to another town, the celebration of chance conjunctions can become the substance of the relationship not its expres- sion.) Furthermore, as Moore and Myerhoff have suggested, the categories of persons that come together in a ceremony (and thus the structures that are involved) may never come together again, ceremonially or otherwise. A one-time intersection of variously impinging interests may be represented, and nothing be- yond that. Certainly celebrative occasions such as this presidential add

These embodiments are centered in ceremonies (in turn embedded in celebrative social occasions) and presum- ably allow the participants to affirm their affili- ation and commitment to their collectivities, and revive their ultimate beliefs

Although this arrangement ordinar- ily allows for the surreptitious consolidaton of structural lines, the same arrangement can also serve to loosen them.

Third, there are people-processing encoun- ters, encounters in which the "impression" subjects make during the interaction affects their life chances.

Second, as already implied, there is the ob- vious fact that a great deal of the work of organizations-decision making, the transmis- sion of information, the close coordination of physical tasks-is done face-to-face, requires being done in this way, and is vulnerable to face-to-face effects. Differently put, insofar as agents of social organizations of any scale, from states to households, can be persuaded, cajoled, flattered, intimidated, or otherwise in- fluenced by effects only achievable in face- to-face dealings, then here, too, the interaction order bluntly impinges on macroscopic en- tities

First, insofar as a complex organization comes to be dependent on particular personnel (typically personnel who have managed to ac- quire governing roles), then the daily sequence of social situations on and off the job-that is, the daily round-in which these personages can be injured or abducted are also situations in which their organizations can suffer

the direct impact of situational effects upon social structure

The doctrine that ground rules inform the interaction order and allow for a traffic of use raises the question of policing, and policing, of course, once again raises political consid- erations

And of course, to accept the con- ventions and norms as given (and to initiate one's action accordingly), is, in effect, to put trust in those about one. Not doing so, one could hardly get on with the business at hand; one could hardly have any- business at hand.

Perhaps behind a willingness to accept the way things are ordered is the brutal fact of one's place in the social structure and the real or imagined cost of allowing oneself to be singled out as a malcontent

convention contract in general (whatever it happens to be), nor personal belief in the ulti- mate value of the particular norms that are involved. Individuals go along with current in- teraction arrangements for a wide variety of reason

Note also that individuals who sys- tematically violate the norms of the interaction order may nonetheless be dependent on them most of the time, including some of the time during which they are actively engaged in vio- lation

Yet it appears to me that as an order of activity, the interaction one, more than any other perhaps, is in fact orderly, and that this orderliness is predicated on a large base of shared cognitive presuppositions, if not normative ones, and self-sustained restraint

a domain of activity-a particular kind of activity

world, and the information they have (or haven't) concerning the possession of this in- formation

It is plain that each participant enters a social situation carrying an already established biography of prior dealings with the other participants-or at least with participants of their kind; and enters also with a vast array of cultural assumptions presumed to be shared

Roger Barker reminded us with his notion of "behavioral setting," the regulations and expectations that apply to a particular social situation are hardly likely to be generated at the moment there. His phrase, "standing be- havior pattern," speaks to the fact, reasonably enough, that quite similar understandings will apply to a whole class of widely dispersed set- tings, as well as to particular locations across inactive phases. Further, although a particular behavioral setting may extend no further than any social situation which two or more partici- pants generate in its precincts-as in the case of a local bar, a small shop floor, or a domestic kitchen-other arrangements are frequent. Factories, airports, hospitals, and public thor- oughfares are behavioral settings that sustain an interaction order characteristically extend- ing in space and time beyond any single social situation occurring in them

bodily displays are enacted and in which all bodily displays are read. Thus the warrant for employing the social situation as the basic working unit in the study of the interaction order

So there are enablements and risks inherent in co-bodily presence. These contingencies being acute, they are likely everywhere to give rise to techniques of social managemen

our experience of the world has a confrontational characte

our ritual vulnerabilities are also our ritual re- sources

By definition, we can partici- pate in social situations only if we bring our bodies and their accoutrements along with us, and this equipment is vulnerable by virtue of the instrumentalities that others bring along with their bodies

The characterization that one individual can make of another by virtue of being able directly to observe and hear that other is organized around two fundamental forms of identification: the categoric kind in- volving placing that other in one or more social categories, and the individual kind, whereby the subject under observation is locked to a uniquely distinguishing identity through ap- pearance, tone of voice, mention of name or other person-differentiating device

This, in conjunction with their capacity to indicate their own courses of physical action and to rapidly convey reactions to such indications from others, provides the precondition for something crucial: the sus- tained, intimate coordination of action, whether in support of closely collaborative tasks or as a means of accommodating closely adjacent ones.

a joint focus of attention, perceive that they do so, and per- ceive this perceiving

Once individuals-for whatever reason- come into one another's immediate presence, a fundamental condition of social life becomes enormously pronounced, namely, its prom- issory, evidential character. It is not only that our appearance and manner provide evi- dence of our statuses and relationships. It is also that the line of our visual regard, the inten- sity of our involvement, and the shape of our initial actions, allow others to glean our im- mediate intent and purpose, and all this whether or not we are engaged in talk with them at the time. Correspondingly, we are con- stantly in a position to facilitate this reveal- ment, or block it, or even misdirect our viewers. The gleaned character of these obser- vations is itself facilitated and complicated by a central process yet to be systematically studied-social ritualization-that is, the stan- dardization of bodily and vocal behavior through socialization, affording such behavior--such gestures, if you will-a spe- cialized communicative function in the stream of behavio

fixed specialized equipment, especially equipment designed for use beyond the family circle, could hardly be economic were it not staffed and used by num- bers of persons who come together at fixed times and places to do so-whether they are destined to use this equipment jointly, adja- cently, or sequentiall

Whatever is distinctive to face-to-face in- teraction is likely to be relatively cir- cumscribed in space and most certainly in time. Furthermore (as distinguished from so- cial roles in the traditional sense), very little by way of a dormant or latent phase is to be found; postponement of an interactional activity that has begun has a relatively massive effect on it, and cannot be much extended without deeply altering what had been happening interaction- ally. For always in the interaction order, the engrossment and involvement of the participants-if only their attention-is crit- ical, and these cognitive states cannot be sus- tained for extended periods of time or much survive forced lapses and interruption. Emo- tion, mood, cognition, bodily orientation, and muscular effort are intrinsically involved, in- troducing an inevitable psychobiological ele- ment. Ease and uneasiness, unselfconscious- ness and wariness are central. Observe, too, that the interaction order catches humans in just that angle of their existence that displays considerable overlap with the social life of other species. It is as unwise to discount the similarity between animal and human greetings as it is to look for the causes of war in genetic predisposition

conceptualize these effects, great or small, so that what they share can be extracted and an- alyzed, and so that the forms of social life they derive from can be pieced out and catalogued sociologically, allowing what is intrinsic to in- teractional life to be exposed thereby. In this way one can move from the merely situated to the situational, that is, from what is inci- dentally located in social situations (and could without great change be located outside them), to what could only occur in face-to-face as- semblies

Always of course the fact of social situatedness can be expected to have some consequence, albeit sometimes appar- ently very minor. These consequences have traditionally been treated as "effects," that is, as indicators, expressions or symptoms of so- cial structures such as relationships, informal groups, age grades, gender, ethnic minorities, social classes and the like, with no great con- cern to treat these effects as data in their own terms.

socially situated

that the contained elements fit to- gether more closely than with elements beyond the order; that exploring relations between orders is critical, a subject matter in its own right, and that such an inquiry presupposes a delineation of the several social orders in the first place; that isolating the interaction order provides a means and a reason to examine di- verse societies comparatively, and our own historicall

main as an analytically viable one-a domain which might be titled, for want of any happy name, the interaction order-a domain whose pre- ferred method of study is microanalysi

tions, that is, environments in which two or more individuals are physically in one an- other's response presence

Drawing on the works of Ervin g Goffman an d Nikla s Luhmann, it is argued thatface-to-face interactions establish realitiessui generis. The y have a life on thei r own, and make demandson thei r own behalf. The y ar e abl e to constitute thei r own boundaries by mean s of an intricate interplayof processes of re ectiv e perception and communication.

For this reason, teachers (and princi- pals who abide by their expectations) carry on an essentially secretive relationship vis-a-vis parents and the community, try- ing to prevent any event which will give these groups a perma- nent place of authority in the school situation. The emphasis on never admitting mistakes of school personnel to parents is an attempt to prevent these outsiders (who would not be subject to teacher control) from getting any excuse which might justify their intrusion into and possible destruction of the existing authority system

The need for recognition of their independent professional authority informs teachers' conceptions of the principal's super- visory role

These expectations are especially clear with regard to the teacher's re- lationships with parents and pupils, where the principal is ex- pected to act to uphold the teacher's authority regardless of cir- cumstances.

authority, a set of shared understandings specifying the amount and kind of control each kind of person involved in the institution is to have over others: who is allowed to do what, and who may give orders to whom.

This authority is sub- ject to stresses and possible change to the degree that partici- pants ignore the shared understandings and refuse to operate in terms of them

Here I want to point to the existence of devices which teachers develop or grow into which allow them some means of defense in face-to-face interaction with the par- ent.

thout symbolic power, when Kox did the same thing she was crucified by the teachers.1

choosing to have Mr. Carrol inform the teachers about the new policy instead of Mrs. Kox, the administration was controlling how the information diffused to the teachers

n changing the copy policy, Mr. Carrol imposes on the teachers' autonomy. As he does so, he engages in considerable interactive work.

he deference that Carrol acquired during interactions with the teachers is symbolic power in potential form. In time, Carrol deployed this symbolic power to successfully redefine the school's copy policy, putting a more restrictive policy in the place of a liberal one. W

tudies have shown that people have a taken for-granted readiness to accept male domi nance (

ox had no formal authority over the LSC, but she had enough symbolic power to define this sacrifice as a worthy investment.

rs. Kox's cultural capital works in this institutional context.

he Local School Council is receptive to Kox because her tough, demanding style fits the logic of accountability.

he "author itarian" cultural style that the teachers resent ed appealed to Stan, and he thought Kox was the best person to "take the lead" as the school navigated accountability reforms

rs. Kox lacks the symbolic power to frame even simple things in ways that induce compliance, which makes it difficult for her to (as she said) "get things done."

ox's commanding style shone through and created an underlying set of signs given off that violated the initial sign about moving the student

ox realized that she had to change her demeanor in order to acquire deference

o understand this struggle, we must con sider the context and audience for these inter actions. Even though Kox's commanding style fits accountability, it does not fit the order that the teachers had negotiated with the prior administrations. A

argue that symbolic capital (defer ence) is a credit that can be deployed as sym bolic power. Mystified from social interaction and the other forms of capital, symbolic capi tal is symbolic power in its potential form, power which is realized in successful efforts to define actions, situations, and events in ways that induce compliance.

cquired through the life course, it is the expressive equipment that we carry into interactions (

controlling the flow of information and mobi lizing support for various interpretations

ontrolling definitions allows one to control interaction, but it is also the symbolic power to change interactions. At stake is not only the maintenance of an order, but also the very power to define the meanings and actions that comprise that order, an impor tant but unnoticed form of control.

o receive deference, one must exhibit the appropriate demeanor towards others.

irst, framing occurs through interactions, and should not be examined apart from them. Second, framing is an act of power (Altheide 2002)?it is an effort to define issues in ways that influence people. Third, though frames are powerful to the extent that they amplify, bridge, and trans form meanings, there is a legacy of interac tions that precede framing efforts. I argue that this legacy consists of rituals of deference and demeanor. These interactions are the force behind the frame (and this force is missed if frames are reified from interactions).

ukes provides one review of the literature. This lit erature is vast and cannot be fully summarized here. For intrepid efforts see Prus (1999), Clegg (1989), and Hall (1985). Prus provides a good micro sociological critique of this literature and argues that the structural focus in the power literature reifies the concept, supplying it with its "mystique." The challenge is to "envision and study the ways in which human interchange is worked out in the ongoing instances of the here and now"

ymbolic power fits under what Lukes (1974) has called the "third dimension" of power, where control over meanings and definitions provides subtle control over thoughts, desires, and future actions. Lukes (1974) contrasts this "third dimension" to the simple power of decision making (a "one-dimensional" view) and the power of "non-decision making," or "agenda setting" (a "two-dimensional" view).

y regimes empha size formal authority, I argue that informal symbolic power relations are fundamental to the order of schools. S

eference is sym bolic power in potential form: once deference is acquired, it can be deployed as the symbol ic power to frame actions, situations, and events in ways that induce compliance and constitute the social order. Drawing from Bourdieu, I argue that this process is shaped by forms of cultural capital that are linked to larger institutions. Cultural capital is a tool that people use to craft a demeanor that is pre sented in interaction. W

offman provides a virtuoso account of the interaction order sui generis, but declines to develop the notion of power that is implicit in his work.

ourdieu develops a notion of symbolic power (the power to define)

The ‘haunted ballroom’ functions in Jack’slibidinal echonomy (to borrow a neologism from Irigaray) as the place ofbelonging in which, impossibly, the demands of both the paternal andthe maternal superegos can be met, the honeyed, dreamy utopia wheredoing his duty would be equivalent to enjoying himself...

thedepressed spirit of our times

The present tense – or rather the hesitation between past andpresent tense – creates an ambiguity, suggesting a fatalistic eternity, acompulsion to repeat – a compulsion that might be a self-fulfillingprophecy. The ghosts return because he fears they will..

Since then, cultural time has folded back on itself,and the impression of linear development has given way to a strangesimultaneity

The slow cancellation of the future has been accompanied by adeflation of expectations.

he 21st century is oppressed by a crushingsense of finitude and exhaustion