Realist social theory : the morphogenetic approach
TL;DR: The Morphogenetic Cycle: the basis of the morphogenetic approach 7. Structural and cultural conditioning 8. The morphogenesis of agency 9. Social elaboration.
Abstract: Building on her seminal contribution to social theory in Culture and Agency, in this 1995 book Margaret Archer develops her morphogenetic approach, applying it to the problem of structure and agency. Since structure and agency constitute different levels of stratified social reality, each possesses distinctive emergent properties which are real and causally efficacious but irreducible to one another. The problem, therefore, is shown to be how to link the two rather than conflate them, as has been common theoretical practice. Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world. The morphogenetic approach is the sociological complement of transcendental realism, and together they provide a basis for non-conflationary theorizing which is also of direct utility to the practising social analyst.
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TL;DR: It is argued that self-regulation and technological personalization are issues which strike at the heart of current debates about the organization of education and the nature of the relationship between institutions and learners, and more deeply, the human condition in the modern world.
Abstract: We present the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) as a practical intervention concerning the organization of technology in education. We explain this by proposing a cybernetic model of the “Personal Learner” using Beer's Viable System Model (VSM). Using the VSM, we identify different regulatory mechanisms that maintain viability for learners, and how physical engagement with tools is of fundamental importance in learners being able to manage their learning environment. We explain how the PLE, in exploiting Service Oriented Architecture, attempts to address this issue of the engagement with tools by allowing learners to control their own instrumentation. This, however, is more than a practical issue. In shifting the locus of control over learning to the learner, the ways in which learners exercise that control becomes an important educational issue. Drawing on sources ranging from Bandura's work on self-efficacy, and philosophical work on social ontology, we argue that self-regulation and technological pe...
134 citations
03 Dec 2003
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the co-evolution of sectoral characteristics, networks of firms and the embedded learning regime from the perspective of a sectoral innovation system (SIS).
Abstract: textThis PhD-thesis describes the co-evolution of sectoral characteristics, networks of firms and the embedded learning regime from the perspective of a sectoral innovation system (SIS). More specifically, this research aims to shed light on how the institutional environment of a SIS conditions network structures and learning regimes and how outcomes from a learning regime may affect again the institutional environment of a SIS. Moreover, this research aims to understand in how far this co-evolutionary process differs between different SIS’s. In analysing this co-evolutionary process, two views on organisation are combined, namely a competence view and a governance view. Following this, a dynamic model of co-evolution at the level of a SIS is developed based on which a number of hypotheses is developed. To test these hypotheses, two SIS’s in the Netherlands have been studied over the period from the late 1980’s towards the early years of the new millennium : multimedia and pharmaceutical biotechnology. The empirical findings indicate that a general pattern of co-evolution on a sectoral level can be identified. How this pattern settles in network characteristics, coordination mechanisms and in properties of a learning regime is specific to the institutional set-up within a SIS or within different parts of a SIS. In this respect, this study contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of SIS’s as well as of how the optimality of network structure and coordination mechanisms varies with different types of SIS’s
134 citations
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that the viability of regimes of accumulation and modes of regulation depends in part upon whether an appropriate scale division of labour is established between their component activities, and it is suggested from the analysis that it is possible to develop a regulationist account of the fundamental tendency towards the integration and division of societies at different scales, and the emergence of dominant societal units in each epoch.
Abstract: The scaling of social systems gives rise to a 'vertical' ordering that combines with the more familiar 'horizontal' ordering by place. But so far this phenomenon has been examined mainly from a political standpoint, and has not as yet received an adequate regulationist treatment. The regulation approach is at heart a systems theory, whereby innovations in accumulation and regulationwhatever their originswill tend to be selected and woven into a stable pattern if they contribute to the expanded reproduction of capital. It is argued here that the viability of regimes of accumulation, and of modes of regulation, depends in part upon whether an appropriate scale division of labour is established between their component activities. It is suggested from the analysis that it is possible on this basis to develop a regulationist account of the fundamental tendency towards the integration and division of societies at different scales, and the emergence of dominant societal units in each epoch.
133 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a concept of habit derived from pragmatist philosophy and sociology and from Veblenian institutional economics is used to explain how processes of habituation provide a mechanism of "reconstitutive downward causation" where institutional circumstances may affect individual preferences.
Abstract: The author claims that the conceptualization of the relation between individual and structure is central to social science. This paper overviews some recent developments in the social theory of structure and agency, and makes a novel addition, based on a concept of habit derived from pragmatist philosophy and sociology and from Veblenian institutional economics. The author shows how processes of habituation provide a mechanism of ‘reconstitutive downward causation’ where institutional circumstances may affect individual preferences. Finally, special characteristics of organizations are discussed, endorsing an evolutionary analytical approach that combines insights from both evolutionary economics and organization science.
133 citations
Book•
01 Nov 2003
TL;DR: In this article, the authors view digital libraries from a social as well as technological perspective, and explore how DLs make a difference in people's lives and their social worlds, and what studying DLs might tell us about information, knowledge, and social and cognitive processes.
Abstract: The contributors to this volume view digital libraries (DLs) from a social as well as technological perspective They see DLs as sociotechnical systems, networks of technology, information artifacts, and people and practices interacting with the larger world of work and society As Bruce Schatz observes in his foreword, for a digital library to be useful, the users, the documents, and the information system must be in harmonyThe contributors begin by asking how we evaluate DLs -- how we can understand them in order to build better DLs -- but they move beyond these basic concerns to explore how DLs make a difference in people's lives and their social worlds, and what studying DLs might tell us about information, knowledge, and social and cognitive processes The chapters, using both empirical and analytical methods, examine the social impact of DLs and also the web of social and material relations in which DLs are embedded; these far-ranging social worlds include such disparate groups as community activists, environmental researchers, middle-school children, and computer system designersTopics considered include documents and society; the real boundaries of a "library without walls"; the ecologies of digital libraries; usability and evaluation; information and institutional change; transparency as a product of the convergence of social practices and information artifacts; and collaborative knowledge construction in digital libraries
132 citations