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7 Int'l J. Soc. Sci. Stud. 120 (2019)
Micro, Meso and Macro Levels of Social Analysis

handle is hein.journals/ijsoctu7 and id is 318 raw text is: International Journal of Social Science Studies Vol. 7, No. 3; May 2019 ISSN 2324-8033 E-ISSN 2324-8041 Published by Redfame Publishing URL: http://ijsss.redfame.com Micro, Meso and Macro Levels of Social Analysis Sandro Serpa, Carlos Miguel Ferreira2 University of the Azores, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Department of Sociology; Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences - CICS.UAc/CICS.NOVA.UAc; Interdisciplinary Centre for Childhood and Adolescence - NICA- UAc, Portugal 2Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences-CICS.NOVA, Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Estoril Higher Institute for Tourism and Hotel Studies, 1069-061 Lisbon, Portugal Correspondence: Sandro Serpa, University of the Azores, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Department of Sociology, Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal. Received: April 9, 2019 Accepted: April 18, 2019 Available online: April 22, 2019 doi: 10.11114/ijsss.v7i3.4223 URL: https://doi.org/10. 11114/ijsss.v7i3.4223 Abstract Micro, meso and macro are levels or scales that can and may be mobilised in social analysis. This paper aims to contribute to the reflection and discussion, in particular, of the use of the meso level in the apprehension of social reality, in its potential advantages and disadvantages. For this purpose, a document collection and selection was carried out. Furthermore, the authors' experience in teaching and research in social sciences, especially in the area of Sociology, was also used. This analytical exercise allows concluding that the meso-social level is mobilised in some perspectives, focusing in a privileged way on the group or the organisation as a structure and intermediate process between the other two levels. As for implications, it may be asserted that the meso level only has heuristic capabilities in the interpretation of a particular social context if the other two levels are not neglected in the analysis. Keywords: micro, meso, macro, levels of social analysis, sociology, social sciences 1. Introduction The articulation between the micro and macrosocial levels has been one of the most discussed and problematized dimensions in social theory, in general, since the beginnings of the establishment of social sciences and this discussion still maintains in the contemporary world (Wiley, 1988; Sell, 2016; IbAhez, 1997; Pyyhtinen, 2017). The same applies to Sociology, as a science that studies the (dis)order of the social world, and that deals with interactions, what results from interaction and has implications in this interaction between human beings, such as objects, practices, representations and values, inserting them into their social context (Serpa & Ferreira, 2018, p. 841). In the specific case of Sociology, this macro-micro connection did and still does generate much discussion (Morais, & Ratton Jr., 2005). As Rocher (1989) points out, from the narrowest and most elementary layer of social behaviours, that of interaction between two persons, we progressively extended our perspective to social groups (p. 65). Likewise, Pires (2012a) sustains that Social order is embodied in patterns of social relationships. These patterns are observable in multiple domains and at different scales, in the similarities of individual behaviours as in the regularities of encounters between human agents, in the establishment of groups and organisations as in the functioning of institutions and in the distribution of social resources (p. 40). This same macro-micro connection underpins, in part, the fact that Sociology is a pluri-paradigmatic science given the different perspectives that emerge in the attempt to articulate these two dimensions (Serpa, 2017; Ferreira & Serpa, 2017; Javeau, 1998; Serpa, 2018; Serpa & Ferreira, 2018; Borup, Brown, Konrad, & Van Lente, 2006; Pyyhtinen, 2017). IbAhez (1997) states that The great proposals of Sociology have done nothing more than to try to explain such continuum, from different epistemological-methodological and/or ontological-descriptive points of view (p. 172). 2. Methods We aim to contribute, specifically, to the reflection and discussion of the use of the meso level, which takes on several meanings (Fine, 2012) in the understanding of reality, in its potential advantages and disadvantages. To this end, a document collection and selection was carried out in the B-ON database (Biblioteca do Conhecimento Online, n.d.). 120

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