Showing papers on "Structure and agency published in 2012"

Are emotions a kind of practice (and is that what makes them have a history)? a bourdieuian approach to understanding emotion

Abstract: The term “emotional practices” is gaining currency in the historical study of emotions. This essay discusses the theoretical and methodological implications of this concept. A definition of emotion informed by practice theory promises to bridge persistent dichotomies with which historians of emotion grapple, such as body and mind, structure and agency, as well as expression and experience. Practice theory emphasizes the importance of habituation and social context and is thus consistent with, and could enrich, psychological models of situated, distributed, and embodied cognition and their approaches to the study of emotion. It is suggested here that practices not only generate emotions, but that emotions themselves can be viewed as a practical engagement with the world. Conceiving of emotions as practices means understanding them as emerging from bodily dispositions conditioned by a social context, which always has cultural and historical specificity. Emotion-as-practice is bound up with and dependent on “emotional practices,” defined here as practices involving the self (as body and mind), language, material artifacts, the environment, and other people. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus, the essay emphasizes that the body is not a static, timeless, universal foundation that produces ahistorical emotional arousal, but is itself socially situated, adaptive, trained, plastic, and thus historical. Four kinds of emotional practices that make use of the capacities of a body trained by specific social settings and power relations are sketched out—mobilizing, naming, communicating, and regulating emotion—as are consequences for method in historical research.

The Reflexive Imperative in Late Modernity

Abstract: This book completes Margaret Archer's trilogy investigating the role of reflexivity in mediating between structure and agency. What do young people want from life? Using analysis of family experiences and life histories, her argument respects the properties and powers of both structures and agents and presents the 'internal conversation' as the site of their interplay. In unpacking what 'social conditioning' means, Archer demonstrates the usefulness of 'relational realism'. She advances a new theory of relational socialisation, appropriate to the 'mixed messages' conveyed in families that are rarely normatively consensual and thus cannot provide clear guidelines for action. Life-histories are analysed to explain the making and breaking of the various modes of reflexivity. Different modalities have been dominant from early societies to the present and the author argues that modernity is slowly ceding place to a 'morphogenetic society' as meta-reflexivity now begins to predominate, at least amongst educated young people.

Intersectionality: How Gender Studies Might Inspire the Analysis of Social Inequality among Migrants

Abstract: The paper discusses the possible impact of the intersectionality approach on the study of inequality and the inclusion/exclusion of migrants. Developed from recent strands of gender studies performing a ‘social re-turn’, the focus on intersectionality promises to solve one of the fundamental problems of migration research: how to reconcile structure and agency without promoting cultural essentialism. Rooted in social theory, it makes a case for non-finalised empirical and theoretical reconstructions of the social practice of migrants. In doing so, it also queries preconceived notions of community, ethnicity, and everyday culture that are abundant in migration studies. By linking the state-of-the-art of inequality studies with migration, promising starting points and conditions of a future integration of a focus on intersectionality into migration studies are considered. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Normative Resistance and Inventive Pragmatism Negotiating Structure and Agency in Transgender Families

Abstract: Transgender individuals and families throw existing taxonomic classification systems of identity into perplexing disarray, illuminating sociolegal dilemmas long overdue for critical sociological inquiry. Using interview data collected from 50 cisgender women from across (primarily) the United States and Canada, who detail 61 unique partnerships with transgender and transsexual men, this work considers the pragmatic choices and choice-making capacities (or “agency”) of this social group as embedded within social systems, structures, and institutions. Proposing the analytic constructs of “normative resistance” and “inventive pragmatism” to situate the interactional processes between agency and structure in the everyday lives of this understudied group of cisgender women, this work theorizes the liminal sociolegal status of an understudied family form. In so doing, it exposes the increasingly paradoxical consolidation and destabilization of sociolegal notions of identity, marriage, normativity, and parenthoo...

Influenced and influential: the role of tour operators and development organisations in tourism and poverty reduction in Ecuador

Abstract: This paper uses a comparative analysis of three differently funded and managed tourism projects in Ecuador to examine the use of a theoretical dimension in the study of tourism as a tool for poverty reduction. The key elements of Giddens’ structuration theory are tested by exploring actor's knowledgeability and reflexivity, and institutionalised interactions, leading to a discussion of the duality of agency and structure. Ninety-seven resident interviews, along with 28 expert stakeholders’ interviews were carried out, shedding light on the dense web of relations, interactions and structures in which poverty reduction tourism projects operate. The key ways in which tourism projects initiated and funded by development organisations differ from private sector-funded projects are uncovered. Short-term development organisation funding was found to be a serious problem, as was the lack of collaborative partnerships between the private sector and development organisations. Contrasting ideologies were found at ag...

The Structuration Approach of Anthony Giddens

Abstract: Structuration Theory developed by Anthony Giddens, a British sociologist, in response to claims by post-structuralism, holds that the structures that humans find themselves in are determined for them, and volunteerism, that suggests that humans are completely free to create their lived environment. Structuration theory has a several unique nomenclature to explain the relationships that the human “agency” has with institutions or “structure”. This paper explains the use of the words and relates them to relevant examples. The understanding that Structuration Theory gives us can be very useful for understanding geographic phenomenon such as the idea of the time-space continuum. Urban arenas have a very complex set of relationships between humans and their environments; housing, movement within the environment, etcetera. The paper is also focused on understanding the connections between Giddens’ theory and the field of geography. The main focus of this paper is on exploring the complexities of Giddens’ Structuration Theory and understanding how it is currently being implemented in societies. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hjsa.v5i0.7043 Himalayan Journal of Sociology & Anthropology-Vol. V (2012) 111-122

Nuancing Neoliberalism: Lessons Learned from a Failed Immigration Experiment

Abstract: This paper contributes to current debates around neoliberalism and subnational developments in Canadian immigration policy. In response to critiques of neoliberalism’s “promiscuity,” scalar and governmentality frameworks are used to analyze Nova Scotia’s failed economic nominee category experiment. The competing choices, calculations, and commitments at stake at “meso”- and “micro”-scales reveal a more complex and compelling reality that underscores the contributions and challenges of a range of political actors. This, in turn, suggests possible disruptions to neoliberalization and seeks to strike a better balance between structure and agency, as well as economic and social immigration priorities.

Structure and agency in learning: a critical realist theory of the development of capacity to reflect on academic practice

Abstract: Theories of learning typically downplay the interplay between social structure and student agency. In this article, we adapt a causal hypothesis from realist social theory and draw on wider perspectives from critical realism to account for the development of capacity to engage in reflection on professional practice in academic roles. We thereby offer a theory of professional learning that explores how social and cultural structures and personal emergent powers combine to ensure variation in the emergence of such reflective capacity. The influence of these factors on professional learning is mediated through reflexive deliberation and social interaction, with the exercise of one's personal powers specifically identified as a stratum of social reality. We consider further the role of concerns, intention and attention in professional learning, drawing together issues that are rarely considered within the same theory. We thus offer a comprehensive account of professional learning, showing how a focus on struc...

"It's been a wonderful life": Accounts of the interplay between structure and agency by "good" university teachers

Abstract: This study is set in an era and a context in which extrinsic forms of motivation and reward are offered by higher education institutions as a means to enhance teaching, and in which teaching is effectively undervalued in relation to research. The study focuses on the role of agency in professional development and demonstrates the relevance of Margaret Archer’s description of the interplay between structure and agency for understanding how academics enhance their teaching in research-intensive universities. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted by a team of academic development advisors in order to obtain accounts of teaching academics of their becoming good teachers, in their own words. An analysis of the transcripts of the interviews with the lecturers demonstrates how dimensions such as biography, current contextual influences, individuals’ dispositions and steps taken to enhance teaching interact in a spiralling manner to generate a sense of self-fulfilment and agency. Intrinsic, rather than extrinsic motivation, is shown to be significant in propelling individuals towards action. The article concludes with an assessment of the implications of the interplay between structure and agency, the need for an enabling environment with a key role for intrinsic motivation for professional development strategies, in research-intensive universities.

From Structural Chaos to a Model of Consumer Support: Understanding the Roles of Structure and Agency in Mental Health Recovery for the Formerly Homeless.

Abstract: Deinstitutionalization shifted the focus in mental health care from provider-guided treatment to consumer-centered recovery. In this article, I seek to develop a deeper understanding of the effect that the organization of mental health services offered in community settings has on the recovery process. I do this by presenting findings from the analysis of focus group and interview data collected from consumers and staff at four housing programs serving formerly homeless individuals with dual diagnosis. My findings highlight the importance of understanding the connection that exists between social structure and personal agency and the recovery process.

Theorising work : investigating the employment of people with learning difficulties

Abstract: Paid employment for people with learning difficulties became central to social inclusion agendas over the period of Labour governments between 1997 and 2010. This found its clearest expression in Valuing Employment Now (2009) the first policy document in UK history to specifically focus on the role of employment in the lives of people with learning difficulties. This thesis tests the validity of the claims made in this and other policy documents seeking to embed the idea that employment supports social inclusion. The overarching research question addressed by the thesis is: Is employment a vehicle for social inclusion for people with learning difficulties? Using a qualitative multi-method approach, this question is explored through an analysis of how policy has informed practice over time; the extent to which young people with learning difficulties are prepared for employment; what employment means to people with learning difficulties; and how the identities associated with people with learning difficulties influence inclusion through employment. The thesis analyses relationships between structure and agency in the specific context of learning difficulties and employment. The thesis investigates how employment for people with learning difficulties has been contextualised by policy, service provision and ideologies over time. It interrogates how people with learning difficulties have interpreted this policy- provision-ideas context, and attempted to negotiate it. The thesis analyses the extent to which people with learning difficulties consider employment as an opportunity for them to become involved in a process of social inclusion. In order to support this analysis, the thesis utilises concepts drawn from sociological theory, in particular the concept of structuration (Giddens, 1990). The research found that people with learning difficulties - employed and unemployed - consider employment to have the potential for social inclusion. However, as well as numerous structural barriers research also found that a combination of policy and practice over time has constructed and maintained identity 'types' (Giddens, 1990: 118) which constrain the extent to which employment can facilitate social inclusion. Further, the research found evidence that people with learning difficulties are aware of the identities they are being invited to adopt and draw on them in contradictory ways.

Agency in the social biographies of young people in Belgrade

Abstract: The article deals with the formation of the social biographies of young people through the interplay of structure and agency. The aim is to provide a grounded typology of patterns of young people's agency within the process of shaping social biographies. The structural context addressed in the article consists of family resources and habitus. The evidence comes from a longitudinal qualitative study with young people from families of workers and families of professionals in two urban neighbourhoods in Belgrade. The narrative analysis of young people's agency that combines longitudinal biographical data and lifelines accounts comes from case studies from the last wave of research. Several patterns of young people's agency that have emerged are explored as related to structural opportunities/constraints, and family habitus. It is argued that family resources and support are mechanisms by which social inequality in Serbian society is reproduced during transition to adulthood. On the other hand, young people a...

Developing a concept of ‘refraction’: exploring educational change and oppositional practice

Abstract: Article outlining concept of 'refraction' developed as part of the RIAIPE3 study – an inter-university programme exploring equity and social cohesion policies in higher education. In much of our experiences of, and research in, educational policy we see how global and national policies are often reinterpreted and redirected at local and classroom level. In this paper, we highlight some initial thoughts relating to the development of the concept of ‘refraction’ as a lens for both theoretical development and for informing methodological approaches and empirical investigation that may provide rich and contextualised understandings of schools and practice. As an emerging concept ‘refraction’ draws on a range of existing traditions and approaches in the social sciences with several key areas for exploration and investigation. Broadly however, refraction in education may be seen as a change in direction arising from individuals’ and groups’ own beliefs, practice and trajectories that are at odds with dominant waves of reform and policies introduced into the field. This type of ‘bending’ or mediation occurs in various ways and for numerous reasons and must be viewed as crucial elements for analysis, as not only do they highlight alternative and pre-figurative antecedents, forms and models of practice, they also illustrate the interaction between ideology and structures and individual and collective practice and action. Firstly, from this perspective, we suggest that research in the field should be contextualised and analysed in relation to historical periodisation and the broader movements, cycles and waves of reform. Secondly, in researching current practice within a broader social-historical context, we can better understand and illuminate the effects of ideology and power and how these are exerted through policies. However, such analyses alone would imply a sense of determinism, with power and ideology as totalising and actors as merely passive and subject to its effects. Analyses therefore, need to account for and examine alternative discourse, movements and practice and the conditions under which they occur. Moreover, in attempting to address the dichotomy of structure and agency, there is a need to elicit qualitative accounts of practitioners in order to explore how, and to what extent, their own trajectories, life histories and professional identities influence their practice, mediate policies and negate the effects of ideology and power. Furthermore, approaches that elucidate pre-figurative practice, politics, discourse and language through narrative inquiry, and the ways in which actors make meaning of their own lives and professional practice, not only offer us detailed pictures of subjective realities but also allow us to highlight alternative practices and oppositional discourses that are often overlooked, or brushed aside, in official discourse. Set against the current period of significant social and political upheaval and uncertainty, we are witnessing threats to the prevailing and dominant perspectives and related policies that have orientated the form of education in the neo-liberal era. Whether the current financial crisis will result in the continued reassertion of more efficacious forms of neo-liberalism and privatisation, or whether competing discourses, ideologies and traditions will begin to influence the organisation and form of education remains to be seen. However, given such unprecedented changes, it is vital we develop conceptual tools that will enable us to investigate and explore changes in policy and practice and the conditions that inform acts of refraction between them, thereby placing context and history as central to explorations (Goodson & Norrie, 2005). As we shall see, the historical periodisation depends a good deal on cultural factors and these are refracted in very different ways in different continents and cultures.

Human Agents and Social Structures

Abstract: 1. Introduction: the opposition of structure and agency - Peter J. Martin and Alex Dennis PART ONE 2. The structure problem in the context of structure and agency controversies - Wes Sharrock and Graham Button 3. On the retreat from collective concepts in sociology - Peter J. Martin 4. Structure and agency as the products of dynamic social processes: Marx and modern social theory - Alex Dennis PART TWO 5. The two Habermases - Anthony King 6. Pierre Bourdieu: from the model of reality to the reality of the model - Richard Jenkins 7. The production and reproduction of social order: is structuration a solution? - Wes Sharrock 8. On the reception of Foucault - Allison Cavanagh and Alex Dennis PART THREE 9. Beyond social structure - Richard Jenkins 10. Two kinds of social theory: the myth and reality of social existence - Anthony King Bibliography Index

Vitamin Practices and Ideologies of Health and the Body

Abstract: This article addresses people in the United States by examining beliefs and practices among people who take vitamins and supplements. The continuing rise of vitamin consumption calls for explanation given the lack of scientific consensus about the efficacy of vitamin pills in preventing disease and improving health. Taking vitamins contests biomedicine professionals and represents the choice for an alternative health practice that involves magical thinking, the emotions and sensory knowledge. Vitamins are self-medicating devices that lead to a culturally constituted experience of the self as a productive and whole person in a capitalist society. We pursue the notion of tactics to articulate the relationship between agency and structure. Vitamin practices reflect a nuanced concept of agency that shows how people navigate broader processes converging in the marketplace. Operating within this wider field, practices are transformative and lead to social change.

Mapping the landscape of young people’s participation in Fiji

Abstract: State, Society & Governance in Melanesia http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/ssgm In this paper, I attempt to generate some discussion, preliminary in nature, about the landscape of young people’s participation, both historical and contemporary. I argue that an understanding of young people’s participation should move beyond the dominant discourse of ‘performance and responsibility’ and, in doing so, identifying some structural and policy challenges to this case. The discussion will focus on the relationship between young people and wider society, exploring the interplay between structure and agency experienced within their lived reality. The paper concludes with a discussion of how an appreciation of young people’s diverse existence and involvement establishes the beginning of genuine partnerships with them. I maintain that the ideas to be explored in this paper are critical to understanding the avenues for young people’s participation and accompanying challenges. This is because when compared to developed countries young people in Fiji although framed as a public policy issue are still left out of key participatory mechanisms and initiatives. The subtle elements of ‘governmentality’ (Foucault 1991), the process of governance and citizen selfgovernance, and occasional policies that react to their perceived ‘at-risk’ status remind us of their existence. In reality, young people are at the forefront of conventional rhetoric associated with development concerns such as rural–urban migration, unemployment, poverty, crime, and sexual and reproductive health, to name a few. Their ‘participation’ has often been touted by good governance advocates and development agencies in the search for solutions. Informed understanding of young people’s participation has often been missing from this puzzle. This paper seeks to redress this. Introduction

Prelude to Practice: Introducing a Practice Based Approach to Forest and Nature Governance

Abstract: ‘Forest and nature governance’ is a field that has recently emerged from forestry sciences. It analyses the governance of a diverse set of issues, including deforestation, biodiversity loss and illegal logging, producing insights useful for science and policy. Its main theoretical base consists of two mainstream social theories: rational choice and neo-institutionalism. However, since these models rest upon problematic conceptualisations of ‘the social’, this chapter proposes a practice based approach, which offers a comprehensive understanding of the social dynamics related to trees, forests and biodiversity. It goes beyond some of the old dualisms in social theory, such as subject and object, and agency and structure. Three sensitising concepts—situated agency, logic of practice and performativity—will be introduced. In addition, the chapter identifies a number of methodological guidelines for the practice based approach, based on a short review of the practice literature. These concepts and guidelines not only define the practice based approach, but also bind together the individual chapters. Finally, this chapter introduces the book’s contents.

Structure, process and agency : the evolution of EU Turkey relations 1999-2004

Abstract: When Turkey became a candidate of the EU in 1999 it had been a problematic applicant for forty years due to residual unpopularity with several member states for cultural, economic, security and normative reasons. However, the Helsinki European Council heralded a change of fortunes for Ankara and by 2005 accession negotiations had opened. This happened in spite of Turkey remaining an unpopular candidate with some member states. Moreover, since 2005, Turkey s standing within the EU has returned to a position akin to its pre-1999 stasis. This thesis thus asks: why did Turkey make such progress between 1999 and 2004/5? What was the specific configuration of structures, processes and actions that enabled that to happen then but not before or after? The thesis approaches this puzzle using a stretched eclectic version of Historical Institutionalism which can incorporate the effects of both structure and agency. In this way it can include the influence of wider structural factors, such as CEEC enlargement, Cyprus and ESDP as well as the agency of Turkey s advocates within the EU. It is a detailed qualitative process-tracing study which uses semi-structured interviews and documentary evidence to make a case for a given explanation. It concludes that a path dependent process, influenced by both structure and agency, can be traced from the Helsinki European Council to that in Brussels five years later which rhetorically entrapped the member states into agreeing to open accession negotiations in spite of Turkey s underlying unpopularity. By adopting this framework for analysis, the thesis makes a contribution to the literature on the Turkey-EU accession process by viewing the time period as a whole and taking a temporal rather than a snapshot approach. In so doing it is possible to explain why and how Turkey was able to make such progress between 1999 and 2004. It is also valuable in the study of present Turkey-EU relations as the ultimate conclusion has to be that there was a unique window of opportunity for both Turkey and the EU during this time and the window may now have closed.

Uncomfortable Antinomies: Going Beyond Methodological Nationalism in Social and Cultural Anthropology

Abstract: This chapter considers some of the ways in which social and cultural anthropology has changed since its heyday in the immediate post-World War Two period.1 In particular, it focuses on the challenges to anthropological fi eldwork methodology, with its stress on long-term stays in specifi c places, arising from the increasing mobility of people, ideas, and things – the process normally labeled globalisation. Just as practice theorists have argued for an irresolvable antinomy between structure and agency both sides of which must be embraced (Ortner 1990), I argue here that anthropologists must learn to live with uncomfortable but necessary antinomies (in the Kantian sense) between their face-to-face methods and the global issues they wish to address, and between their commitment to holism (with its associated dangers of methodological nationalism and/or ethnic groupism) on the one side, and the necessity of encompassing within their purview fl ux, movement, and change, on the other. Whether anthropologists couch their response to globalisation in terms of multi-sited ethnography (a methodological stance), global ethnography (a research programme), or in some other way, these antinomies cannot be avoided and should be embraced. Ethnographic exemplars are taken largely from the Asian contexts with which I am most familiar, but I hope that nothing advanced here depends on the particular cases considered.

The consumption of contemporary visual art: identity formation in late adulthood

Abstract: This paper examines the responses of older people to the British Art Show 6, which is an exhibition of recent developments in contemporary visual art in the UK. One group of respondents attended two “meet the artist talks” and a second group attended an artist-led workshop where they produced work that had been stimulated by the exhibition. The focus groups that resulted were analysed using theoretical frameworks related to identity construction. The analysis demonstrated that respondents were using the resources of the exhibition to construct identity positions in response to their social contexts. However, their ability to do this was governed by how the relationship between agency and structure played out for individuals in their engagement with contemporary visual art. It is suggested that wellbeing originates from the control such a process might give individuals over their social environment.

The interplay of structure and agency dynamics in strike activity

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to build on the insights of mobilisation theory to examine the interplay of structure and agency dynamics in strike activity. It proposes to do so by investigating the 2007 36‐hour strike undertaken by 2,300 engineering and infrastructure workers employed by the private consortium Metronet on the London Underground, focusing attention on the relationship between workers’ militancy, trade union leadership and left‐wing politics within a highly distinctive and union favourable “opportunity structure” context.Design/methodology/approach – Semi‐structured in‐depth interviews were conducted with 24 RMT union informants within Metronet and the London Underground (including union members, reps, branch and regional officers); analysis was made of documentary industrial relations and trade union material; and personal fieldwork observation.Findings – Although favourable specific contextual and contingent factors served as both provocations and resources for strike action, not...

Can pikachu save fannie mae? Value, finance and imagination in the new Pokéconomy.

Abstract: I argue that Pokemon offers a demonstrative and constitutive moment of the financializaion of contemporary cultural life in ways that signal an intensification of finance, risk, debt and cognitive labour as global imperatives. I suggest that children's play with Pokemon cards can help us revisit tenacious debates within Cultural Studies over structure and agency by focusing on the social production of value (in this case, the way children produce common forms of value for their card collections) and how this is connected to economic value in an age of speculative capital. In particular, I argue that Pokemon emblematizes emerging trends in the way the financialized economy develops and depends on commodified social practices that offer resources for the development of financialized subjectivities and engineered forms of agency.

The politics of medical curriculum accreditation: thoughts, not facts?

Abstract: The medical profession needs to adapt to the socio-political challenges of the 21st century. These have been described as the ‘Health Society’. Medical professionalism, however, is characterised by conservative values that are perpetuated by the professional attributes of autonomy, authority, and state-sanctioned altruism. The medical education enterprise is a replication and continuation of these values, sanctioned by its accreditation agencies. The Australian Medical Council through its accreditation standards only sanctions the formal curriculum. The status quo, however, is maintained by social, cultural and political parameters enmeshed in the informal and hidden curricula. By not addressing informal and hidden value constructs that maintain elitist medical arrogance the accreditation agency fails to uphold its remit. This paper explores the philosophical and empirical bases of these phenomena and illustrates them by means of a case study. Medical education and its sanctioning structure and agency are confirmed as forceful political enterprises. We conclude that explicit review of the informal and hidden curriculum is a feasible and necessary prerequisite for medical education reform and change.

Constraining and Enabling Creativity: The Theoretical Ideas Surrounding Creativity, Agency and Structure

Abstract: Sternberg and Kaufinan have written that 'constraints do not necessarily harm creative potential indeed they are built into the construct of creativity itself (2010, p. 481). This paper will take this assertion and apply it to what Anthony Giddens (1976) has labelled one of the central problems in social theory, that is, the relationship between agency, an individual's ability to make choice, and structure, those things seen to determine behaviour. This relationship has been explored extensively by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1990, 1993 and 1996) in regard to cultural production. It is implicitly carried in the systems model of creativity developed within psychology (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, 1990, 1997, 1999), as the author has argued in other papers (Mcintyre 2008, 2008a, 2009, 2009a). This paper will explore this issue in relation to the notion of freedom, as depicted by the philosopher David Hume (1952), how this notion relates to the conditions of creativity as conventionally seen in Romantic accounts and how this construct is typified in other more rationally focused views of creativity. In doing this the paper will analyse, critique, and synthesize existing literature on creativity and cultural production, specifically that concerned with the theoretical ideas surrounding creativity, agency and structure.

Scholarly detectives: Police professionalisation via academic education

Abstract: The thesis explores the role of academic education in police professionalisation. Due to its high complexity, specialisation and status, detective work is well-suited for illustrating these developments and the practical and symbolic benefits they can bring to the police and policing as a whole. The overall approach of thesis is iterative. Literature from police studies and sociology of professions provides the conceptual and theoretical framework for the empirical data of 24 semi-structured interviews conducted with 14 police national training coordinators and local police trainers. The increasing academisation of police training and the formalisation of the police-academia relationships suggest police professionalisation has reached a tipping point. This is seen in the current investigative skills training in England and Wales, which is characterised by growing centralisation, standardisation, and emphasis on formalising the professional knowledgebase of investigations and policing – a trend which the Professionalising Investigation Programme exemplifies. While the police (including the investigative specialism) can be shown to display many of the qualities of professions, it has lacked the level of instructional abstraction characterising other professions, typically provided by higher education and, crucially, leading to externally recognised qualifications. Developing academic police education is not without its challenges, chief among them the perceived epistemological and cultural divide between the ‘two worlds’ of police and academia. A successful transformation requires careful consideration of the content and format of the arrangements, investment, support, acceptance and engagement from police, academia and government, and a simultaneous change to cultural dispositions (habitus) and internal and external structures (field). This is worth the effort as a number of practical and symbolic benefits of police academic education can be identified. It has the potential to improve the quality of service by deepening police knowledge and understanding and facilitating community-oriented approaches. More importantly, academic education bestows a rich cultural capital, strengthens and legitimises police expertise, market monopoly, and status in the eyes of the public, other professions and the government. It enables the survival of the profession, giving it the tools to prevail in conflicts over competence and the right to define and interpret policing and its social context. In summary, police professionalisation via academic education can be explained in terms of agency and structure both; as a deliberate occupational upgrading spurred by social and economic aspirations and aimed to reconceptualise and relegitimise policing; and as an inevitable reaction to wider changes and a deeper ontological shift taking place in the society.