Agency (philosophy)

About: Agency (philosophy) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10461 publications have been published within this topic receiving 350831 citations. The topic is also known as: Thought & Human agency.

Not so 'new'? Looking Critically at Childhood Studies

Abstract: The ‘new’ sociology of childhood emerged over 20 years ago, arguing for the social construction of childhood to be acknowledged and for the recognition of children and young people's agency and rights. Other disciplines joined this growing academic area, from children's geographies to law, so that the phrase ‘childhood studies’ has become a popular label. Policy and practice both influenced, and were influenced by, childhood studies, particularly in relation to promoting children's rights. This paper provides an insider's critique of the current state of childhood studies, with attention to theoretical challenges and its applicability across Majority and Minority Worlds. From a childhood studies’ perspective, the paper suggests the potential of notions of relations, relationships and reciprocity.

All Quiet on the Workplace Front? A Critique of Recent Trends in British Industrial Sociology

Abstract: Though perspectives underpinning research may have differed sharply, industrial sociology at its best has been able to uncover the variety of workplace resistance and misbehaviour that lies beneath the surface of the formal and consensual. The paper argues that this legacy is in danger of being lost as labour is taken out of the process and replaced by management as the active and successful agency. While there are a number of practical and theoretical forces shaping this trend, the paper identifies the growing influence of Foucauldian perspectives. It goes on to develop a critique of the way in which such theory and research overstates the extent and effectiveness of new management practices, while marginalising the potential for resistance.

Reconstructing Conceptions of Local Capacity: The Local Education Agency’s Capacity for Ambitious Instructional Reform

Abstract: In this article, the authors argue that the notion of local capacity needs to be rethought in light of the extraordinary demands for learning imposed on local educators by the current wave of instructional reforms. Confining their discussion to the local education agency (LEA), the authors argue that the LEA’s capacity to support ambitious instruction consists to a large degree of LEA leaders’ ability to learn new ideas from external policy and professional sources and to help others within the district learn these ideas. Drawing on a study of nine school districts, they identify three interrelated dimensions of this capacity—human capital, social capital, and financial resources.

The Cognitive Origins of Bourdieu's Habitus

Abstract: This paper aims to balance the conceptual reception of Bourdieu's sociology in the United States through a conceptual re-examination of the concept of Habitus. I retrace the intellectual lineage of the Habitus idea, showing it to have roots in Claude Levi-Strauss structural anthropology and in the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget, especially the latter's generalization of the idea of operations from mathematics to the study of practical, bodily-mediated cognition. One important payoff of this exercise is that the common misinterpretation of the Habitus as an objectivist and reductionist element in Bourdieu's thought is dispelled. The Habitus is shown to be instead a useful and flexible way to concep-tualize agency and the ability to transform social structure. Thus ultimately one of Bourdieu's major contributions to social theory consists of his development of a new radical form of cognitive sociology, along with an innovative variety of multilevel sociological explanation in which the interplay of different structural orders is highlighted. In keeping with the usual view, the goal of sociology is to uncover the most deeply buried structures of the different social worlds that make up the social universe, as well as the "mechanisms" that tend to ensure their reproduction or transformation. Merging with psychology, though with a kind of psychology undoubtedly quite different from the most widely accepted image of this science, such an exploration of the cognitive structures that agents bring to bear in their practical knowledge of the social worlds thus structured. Indeed there exists a correspondence between social structures and mental structures, between the objective divisions of the social world . . . and the principles of vision and division that agents apply to them (Bourdieu, 1996b[1989], p. 1).

The sociology of social change

Abstract: Preface. Part I: Concepts and Categories:. 1. Fundamental Concepts in the Study of Change. 2. Vicissitudes of the Idea of Progress. 3. Temporal Dimension of Society: Social Time. 4. Modalities of Historical Tradition. 5. Modernity and Beyond. 6. Globalization of Human Society. Part II: Three Grand Visions of History:. 7. Classical Evolutionism. 8. Neo--evolutionism. 9. Theories of Modernization: Old and New. 10. Theories of Historical Cycles. 11. Historical Materialism. Part III: Alternative Vision: Making History:. 12. Against Developmentalism: Modern Critique. 13. History as a Human Product: Evolving Theory of Agency. 14. New Historical Sociology: Concreteness and Contingenc. 15. Social Becoming: the Essence of Historical Change. Part IV: Aspects of Social Becoming:. 16. Ideas as Historical Forces. 17. Normative Emergence: Evasions and Innovations. 18. Great Individuals as Agents of Change. 19. Social Movements as Forces of Change. 20. Revolutions: the Peak of Social Change. Bibliography