Typification

Definition of Typification

The Canada social science dictionary [1] provides the following meaning of Typification: Alfred Schutz (1899-1959), a phenomenologist, suggests that in all of our encounters with others, with the exception of ‘we-relationships’ (the most intimate of relationships), we experience and understand the other in terms of ideal types. We form a construct of a typical way of acting, assume typical underlying motivations or personality. For example we make prior assumptions about the personalities and behaviour of a doctor, priest or judge. Ethnomethodologists have studied the use of this process of typification as a tool for understanding how people such as coroners, prosecutors, police officers and others achieve a sense of concreteness and predictability in their work. Coroners for example, may operate with a sense of a typical suicide, prosecutors with a sense of a ‘normal’ crime of child abuse, police officers with a sense of the ‘normal’ or typical resident of a particular neighborhood. See: IDEAL TYPE in this legal dictionary and in the world encyclopedia of law.

Typification: Resources

Notes and References

• Drislane, R., & Parkinson, G. (2016). (Concept of) Typification. Online dictionary of the social sciences. Open University of Canada