Methods employed in social science research must be true to the phenomena under investigation. Both symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology take everyday life as their fundamental premise. Symbolic interactionism, based primarily on the work of George Herbert Mead, is the peculiar and distinctive character of interaction as it takes place between human beings interpreting and defining each other's actions instead of merely reacting to them; their response is based on the meanings which they attach to such actions and is mediated by the use of symbols and interpretation. According to Mead, meaning is ascribed to the actions of others by taking the role of others, either of a specific person (significant other) or of a group (generalized other). Ethnomethodology is the examination of how people in their everyday lives make sense of the situations in which they find themselves. Both methodologies require that phenomena must determine the method, although the selection of phenomena as relevant reflects the researcher's choice. A methodological implication of these approaches is that problems must be examined within the situations in which they manifest themselves by getting close to the people being studied. (DF)