Carl J. Couch was the founder of the "New Iowa School" of symbolic interactionism

Symbolic interactionism

Symbolic Interaction, also known as interactionism, is a sociological theory that places emphasis on micro-scale social interaction to provide subjective meaning in human behavior, the social process and pragmatism.-History:...

, was also a founder and past president of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactionism and served as president of the Midwest Sociological Society.

Couch received his B.A. in 1951, his M.A. in 1954, and his Ph.D. in 1955 all from the University of Iowa

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

. He served on the faculty of Montana State University in Bozeman from 1955 to 1957, Central Michigan University

Central Michigan University

Central Michigan University is a public research university located in Mount Pleasant in the U.S. state of Michigan...

 in Mt. Pleasant from 1957 to 1962, Michigan State University

Michigan State University

Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

from 1962 to 1965, and University of Iowa from 1965 to 1994.

The Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactionism sponsors an annual Couch-Stone meeting named in honor of Couch and another noted symbolic interactionsist, Gregory Stone.

The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research is a non-profit organization established to promote scholarship in sociological and communication questions. It grants the Carl J. Couch Internet Research Award each year.

Selected publications

• "Collective Behavior:Examining Some Stereotypes" (1968) "Social Problems" 15:310-322.
• Constructing Civilizations (1984)
• Researching Social Processes in the Laboratory (1987)
• Studies in Symbolic Interactionsism (with others, 1987
• Social Processes and Relationships: A Formal Approach (1988)
• "You just might get it right one day." On being informed. Symbolic Interaction, 1995, 18(3), 225-228.
• Information Technologies and Social Order (with others, 1996)Second edition, 2006.
• Communication and Social Structure(with others).
• On the indispenaability of communication for understanding social relationships and social structures (with D. Maines). Communication and social Structure.
• Constructing Social Life. (ed. with R. Hintz)). (1975)
• Recording Social Interaction (with S. Saxton). Chapter in C.Couch and R. Hintz, eds.) Constructing Social Life. (1975).
• Self-Attitudes and Degree of Agreement with Immediate Others. American Journal of Sociology (1958).
• Writing and Reading as Social Activirties (with R. Hintz). Sociological Quarterly (1973).
• Oral Technologies: A Cornerstone of Ancient Civilizations? "Sociological Quarterly. (1989).
• Presidential Address: Let Us Rekindle the Passion by Constructing a Robust Science of the Social. Sociological quarterly (1995).
• Essays in Honor of Carl J. Couch. (1995).