Definition of the Situation: The Thomas Theorem

The Thomas Theorem, created by W.I.Thomas and his wife Dorothy (The Child in America, 1928), is a simple and interesting way to introduce students to the social constructionist / Interactionist approach in Sociology, for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, the Theorem – “It is not important whether or not the interpretation is correct, if we define situations as real, they are real in their consequences“ – is relatively easy to both grasp and demonstrate, using a wide range of possible examples.

One simple way would be to ask your students about their current definition of the situation (an education class) and how this definition is both created and, perhaps more-importantly, maintained.

Alternatively, you might like to both amuse and amaze your students with this clip from the Jimmy Kimmel show which stopped iphone users on the street and claimed to be able to upgrade their old iphone – including all their apps – to the latest version so they could test all the newest Apple improvements for themselves.

Which, of course they did.

And these random users were suitably impressed by the significant speed increases, ease of use and the like.

Except all they did was take the user’s old phone, secretly change the cover, return it as “the new iphone16” and film how a changed definition of the situation changed the user’s perception…

Secondly, once grasped it lays the foundations for understanding a further range of Interactionist concepts, (self-fulfilling prophecies, labelling theory) and applications, such as social stereotyping or the fear of crime (the conviction, for example, that crime rates are both high and rising when, statistically, they may be historically low and falling).

And if you want to follow this up with a more-general introduction to social constructionism, we may well have made a film about that too.