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Playing Goffman’s Information Game: A Classroom Activity Involving Student Interactions

Goffman’s dramaturgical approach is frequently used to introduce undergraduate students to the sociological understanding of human interaction. While a number of scholars have designed engaging student activities that highlight Goffman’s approach, most of these activities tend to involve atypical embarrassing interactions or norm-breaking behaviors that happen in front of a large public audience. In this way, they are unlike the mundane face-to-face interactions that were the focus of much of Goffman’s work. I have used Goffman’s notion of interactions as an “information game,” discussed at the start of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, to create a stimulating in-class exercise that involves students having a routine one-on-one interaction with another student. Responses from 170 students in four Introduction to Sociology classes suggest that students found the activity engaging and believed it gave them a richer understanding of Goffman’s approach to human interaction.