Hermeneutic and interpretative traditions

Interpretative sociology starts from a simple claim: people act on meanings, so sociology must interpret those meanings rather than only count behaviour. Mead showed how the self grows through interaction, Schutz studied the taken-for-granted lifeworld, Garfinkel exposed the hidden rules of everyday order, Goffman analysed life as performance, and Geertz read culture as a web of significance. For example, a classroom silence can mean respect, confusion, or protest, and only interpretation can tell which one it is.