Ethnomethodology (H. Garfinkel) and Phenomenology (A. Schutz)

• Sociology of "social meanings" or the meanings people give to their daily human arrangements

This complex sociological perspective relates to the Symbolic interactionism as Dr. Goma has mentioned in the section devoted to Symbolic interactionism. Ethnomethodology examines how people make sense out of social life in the process of living it, as if each were a researcher engaged in enquiry. This is all against the formal and holistic sociology of Emile Durkheim the French founder of sociology as scientific disciplinary.

Ethnomethodology is an inspiring perspective to "problem solving" rooted in the process of discribing our routine, our everyday activities. Rather than treating folks as dopes or dummies and telling them what to do, what to know, and how to do what they do as most social scientists and organization researcher do, ethnomethodologists reveal the methods ordinary people use to approach, to understand, and to be in their world.

Most people resolve problems themselves when they are described in that most "problems" arise because one person or group fails to understand the what, how and why of someone else's reasoning. Exploring and describing exposes the problem for what it is, for who it is a problem and, often, why it remains a problem. Seen like this, the problem ceases to be.

The social phenomenology of Alfred Schutz has influenced the development of the Social Constructivism and Ethnomethodology.