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Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world.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: The field of second language studies is using increasingly sophisticated methodological approaches to address a growing number of urgent, real-world problems as discussed by the authors, such as fragmentation, generalizability, and replication.
Abstract: The field of second language studies is using increasingly sophisticated methodological approaches to address a growing number of urgent, real-world problems. These methodological developments bring both new challenges and opportunities. This article briefly reviews recent ontological and methodological debates in the field, then builds on these insights to consider some of the current dilemmas faced by researchers of second language teaching and learning, including concerns regarding fragmentation, generalizability, and replication. Through a review of recent research, we argue that one means of addressing these ongoing questions is to continue to focus collectively and collaboratively on solving real-world problems of language learning, while also layering our perspectives. By layering, we mean considering the central philosophical challenges, often those that are basic values in our methodological approaches, such as objectivity and bias, from varied epistemological stances. We argue that recognizing these differences and using a layered approach will enhance and improve our attempts to address the pressing problems in our field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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TL;DR: In this paper, a case study of management accounting practices in a privatised utility company is presented, where the authors examine the potential of this development for management accounting research, by setting it within their own skeletal model of the structuration process.
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...Instead, we found that bracketing agents’ context analysis from agents’ conduct analysis served merely to focus attention on the internal and external aspects of agents; reflecting the point made by Archer (1995) that even if we favour the ontological perspective of duality of structure, substantive research requires the adoption of analytical dualism....
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TL;DR: This article argued that a strong form of inseparability is theoretically problematic and empirically untenable, and argued that strong inseparability in a process ontology is also empirically unenable.
Abstract: Socioculturalists are divided on two of the foundational theoretical claims of the paradigm: a process ontologyof the social world; and the inseparabilityof the individual and the group. A process ontology holds that only processes are real; entities, structures or patterns are ephemeral and do not really exist. Inseparability is the claim that the individual and the social cannot be methodologically or ontologically distinguished. To clarify the different stances toward these claims held by socioculturalists, I draw on the contemporary sociological debate between Anthony Giddens and Margaret Archer. Giddens’ structuration theory holds to a process ontology and to inseparability, while Archer’s emergentist theory rejects both. I borrow the terms of this debate to clarify the tensions among several prominent socioculturalists, including Cole, Lave and Wenger, Rogoff, Shweder, Valsiner, and Wertsch. I argue that a strong form of inseparability is theoretically problematic and empirically untenable, and I co...
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TL;DR: The Example of Disability Research: Interdisciplinary Research and Critical Realism The Example of disability research as mentioned in this paper, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 56-64, 2002
Abstract: (2002). Interdisciplinary Research and Critical Realism The Example of Disability Research. Alethia: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 56-64.
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