Ethnomethodology treats social order as given while symbolic interactionism allows situations to reshape it.

Evidence

This seems to be the distinction between an ethnomethodological and a radical symbolic interactionist approach, at the level of the micro-study of television. For ethnomethodology takes the overall social order for granted: each encounter is thus a reproduction, at the level of meaning construction and the situation, of a given social order, which remains essentially unaffected by these transactions. (Thus a strict Garfinkel analysis of a TV program can be squared with a Parsonian view of the integrated social order.) Erving Goffman seems to hold a position close to this, though there are many more “discrepancies” allowed for between the level of “social order” and the level of the “construction of social order in face-to-face situations.” Howard Becker and others, however, can be pushed toward a position where the outcome of transactions (interactional, symbolic) at the situational level can affect the ongoing reproduction of society at the “social order” level. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 879

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharply distinguishes ethnomethodology (social order taken as given, each encounter reproduces it) from radical symbolic interactionism (situational outcomes can alter the social order).