The girls" words and actions were based on how she defined the situation and environment she was in. From there, she created a self-fulfilling prophecy and basically nothing around her mattered. The fact that people were removing themselves from the car or shaking their heads in disbelief didn't effect the girl because through the socialization process had come up her definition of norms. Her actions were based solely on the conversation she was having with the boys and not the other "groups" in the train. Her meanings to behaviors or perception of reality was different than those of others on the train and, therefore, created misunderstandings and conflicts.
Functionalism makes a strong case about the people being part of this well-oiled machine. The strengths of functionalism lie in that fact. The girl was a dysfunction among the theory, but was still a part of the entire pie. Though the other people didn't realize they were working together to maintain stability they were because chaos didn't break loose. Everyone around her and the boys may have already come to a consensus about how people are supposed to act in public and disagreed with the girls" actions, but also conceded to allow her to act as she did in order to keep the peace. Functionalism as a whole, is too conservative and lacks the study of smaller groups. It can be broken down into macrosociology which studies things on a larger scale, such as social structures, systems, and institutions. That is why functionalism doesn't explain this scenario as well as interactionism.
Interactionism helps us understand this situation the best out of the three perspectives. First, interactionism studies scenarios on a smaller level. .
Microsociology studies based on interactions of individuals and the context of the .
Applied Perspectives 4.
interactions. This girl under observation definitely had her own definition of what was acceptable in public.
