MonographDOI
Realist social theory : the morphogenetic approach
TLDR
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Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world.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.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Adoption and feasibility of a communication app to enhance social connectedness amongst frail institutionalized oldest old: an embedded case study
TL;DR: The risks of social isolation and loneliness are becoming emergent issues for older adults (aged 65+) in industrialized countries, particularly for oldest old people (80+) who are frail and institu... as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
The interview reconsidered: context, genre, reflexivity and interpretation in sociological approaches to interviews in higher education research
Sue Clegg,Jacqueline Stevenson +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors make a number of arguments about the research interview and maintain that, despite the near ubiquity of the method in higher education research, the interview remains under-theorised and mis-described.
Book
The Social in the Global: Social Theory, Governmentality and Global Politics
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Journal Article
Trust, Social Quality and Wellbeing: A Sociological Exegesis
Paul Ward,Samantha B Meyer +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that trust plays a more significant role in social quality than the current model suggests, and suggest ways in which current social theories of trust may be situated within the Social Quality theory, in terms of the normative and conditional factors.