Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical framework that derives from critical humanism through social psychology and is presented as an alternative to sociological and psychological views of social reality. This paper analyzes the general arguments of symbolic interactionism, its portrayal of people as responsible agents, and its interpretive methodology. Rather than constructing realities that are located either within individual consciousness or within sociocultural environments, symbolic interactionism interprets the process of interaction itself. The approach therefore looks to linguistic and cognitive phenomena for information about the covert self whose overt behavior is being observed. The interactionist perspective is critical of psychology, with its structuralist, kinds-of-people theories, and of sociology, with its organizational, kinds-of-situation theories. Human beings' unique biological potential for conceptual thinking, as manifested through language, facilitates social interaction, which leads to reasoning and social control, and thus to the development of society. Distinctively human behavior emerges from a rational process that is constructed by the self. The basic weakness in conventional theoretical approaches is the treatment of human behavior as the product of antecedent conditions. Participant observation and longitudinal study are held to be appropriate investigative methodologies. (CJH)