Front Stage

Examples of Front Stage in the following topics:

• Dramaturgy

  • An example of the difference between front stage and back stage behaviors would be the type of customer service embodied by baristas at the local coffee shop.
  • While on the clock and in front of customers, baristas will typically do what the customer wants and try to look untroubled by obnoxious requests.
  • Goffman explains this awareness in terms of front stage and back stage behaviors.
  • Front stage actions are those that are visible to the audience and are part of the performance, while back stage actions only occur when the audience is not around.
  • Erving Goffman uses the metaphor of a stage to explain human behavior in everyday life.

• Levels of Analysis: Micro and Macro

  • Consider, for example, how front and back stage spaces are managed during a visit to the doctor.
  • When you arrive at the doctor's office, you are on stage as you present yourself to the receptionist.
  • As you are shown to an exam room, you are briefly ushered into a back stage space.
  • Once again, you are on stage.
  • In social interaction, like in theatrical performance, there is a front region where the "actors" (individuals) are on stage in front of the audience.

• Kohlberg and Moral Development

• Piaget

  • The stages are as follows:
  • The sensorimotor stage is the first of the four stages in cognitive development that "extends from birth to the acquisition of language. " In this stage, infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating experiences with physical actions–in other words, infants gain knowledge of the word from the physical actions they perform.
  • The pre-operational stage is the second stage of cognitive development.
  • The third stage is called the "concrete operational stage" and occurs approximately between the ages of 7 and 11 years.
  • The final stage is known as the "formal operational stage" (adolescence and into adulthood).

• Demographic Transition Theory

  • An example of this stage is the United States in the 1800s.
  • Afghanistan is currently in this stage.
  • In stage three, birth rates fall.
  • Mexico’s population is at this stage.
  • Sweden is considered to currently be in Stage 4.

• Stages in Social Movements

  • Blumer, Mauss, and Tilly, have described different stages social movements often pass through.
  • This makes the actual stages the movement has passed through difficult to discern.

• The Demographic Transition

  • Countries in the second stage of the demographic transition (see diagram) experience a large increase in population.
  • This is depicted in the diagram when death rates fall in stage two but birth rates do not fall until stage three.
  • The red line begins its rapid upward growth in stage two and begins to level off at the end of stage three.
  • By the end of stage three, birth rates drop to fall in line with the lower death rates.

• Class Conflict and Marx

  • When the serfs rose up and overthrew the feudal lords, the feudal stage ended and ushered in a new stage: capitalism.
  • At different stages in history, different groups have controlled the means of production.
  • In Marx's dialectic, the class conflict in each stage necessarily leads to the development of the next stage.
  • Marx was less interested in explaining the stable organization of any given historical stage than in explaining how society changed from one stage to the next.
  • Marx believed that the class conflict present in any stage would necessarily lead to class struggle and, eventually, to the end of that stage and the beginning of the next.

• Theoretical Perspectives on Childhood Socialization

  • Children progress through five stages, each association with sexual satisfaction through a particular body part.
  • The first of Piaget's stages of development is the sensorimotor stage, which lasts from birth until about age two.
  • During this stage, the child learns about himself and his environment through motor and reflex actions.
  • The sensorimotor stage is followed by the preoperational stage, which begins about the time that the child begins to talk and lasts until about age seven.
  • During this stage, children more easily accommodate ideas that do not fit their preexisting worldview.

• The Life Course

  • This is an example that demonstrates the influence of developmental stages on legal determinations of life stages, and thus, attitudes towards people at different stages of the human life course.
  • This man is well into his later years and depicts life in its final stages.
  • This picture depicts an individual at the earliest of life stages.