Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies

Item

Title

Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies

Abstract/Description

Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action." Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture independently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture's causal role in shaping action.

Author/creator

Swidler, Ann

Date

1986

In publication

American Sociological Review

Volume

51

Issue

2

Pages

273-286

ISSN

0003-1224

DOI

10.2307/2095521

URL

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095521

Item sets

OB Citations - Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Evaluating Improvement Networks

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