Harold Garfinkel

Definition

Harold Garfinkel was an American sociologist and the founder of ethnomethodology, an approach that studies the way people make sense of their everyday world. He focused on the seemingly mundane aspects of social interaction, showing how these interactions are actually complex and rule-bound.

Related terms

Ethnomethodology:

A branch of sociology that examines how individuals use everyday conversation and gestures to construct a common sense of reality.

Social norms: Unwritten rules about how to behave in society, which guide people's actions and interactions.

Breaching experiment: An experimental setup by Garfinkel where social norms are intentionally violated to study how people react, highlighting the underlying patterns of social order