Showing papers on "Structure and agency published in 2019"

Conceptualizing Individual Agency in the Transition from School to Work: A Social-Ecological Developmental Perspective

Abstract: This article addresses the ongoing debate on the role of agency and structure in shaping the transition from school to work. Drawing on theories of life-course sociology and life-span psychology an integrated social-ecological developmental approach is presented, conceptualizing individual agency as a relational and intentional process that evolves through interactions with the wider socio-cultural context. Agency is understood as a multi-dimensional construct, influenced by multiple proximal and distal social circumstances that channel the manifestation of agency by offering distinct transition pathways. The article specifies the ways how social structures support and constrain the development of agency, and asks if individual agency can overcome social constraints, and to what extent and in what circumstances can agency be most effective? It is argued that agency is most influential (a) when social structures are flexible, enabling switching between tracks; (b) during critical windows of opportunity, such as during transitions from one educational track to another or from education into paid employment; (c) in situations when individuals leave a pre-structured path; (d) when intentions are closely matched to individual competencies; and (e) when socio-economic disadvantage is not overpowering. The analysis presented in this paper should enable researchers to expand and deepen their understanding of the role of structure and agency in shaping school-to-work transitions and inform empirical research on the topic.

Informality as Structure or Agency? Exploring Shed Housing in the UK as Informal Practice

Abstract: Recent attention to the phenomenon of ‘beds in sheds’—outbuildings used illegally for residential accommodation—suggests that shelter informality is increasing in the UK. Reflecting concerns about its apparent proliferation, the issue has been increasingly prominent on government and media agendas, framed in terms of illegal immigration and rogue landlordism, with policy announcements accompanied by high‐profile police and border agency raids. While little firm evidence exists on the scale, nature and causes of this type of informal shelter provision, this paper takes as its starting point the discursive construction of informality in the specific context of the UK, exploring the role of key agentic and structural factors therein. It suggests that an emphasis on agency in government and media accounts may risk obscuring the structural factors (including state policies) involved in the production of informality, as well as the interaction between agency and structure. The case of shed housing demonstrates how informality is produced by a complex interplay of structural and agentic factors characteristic of many global Northern cities, captured by the notion of ‘informality as practice’ which derives from debates focusing on Southern cities. At the same time, it shows how discourses around informality may be mobilized in the service of specifically context‐driven ideological agendas, in this case relating to immigration and welfare.

Investigating Agency: Methodological and Empirical Challenges

Abstract: The literature on regional development increasingly recognizes that agency is an essential but understudied factor in processes of regional structural change. However, much like the fundamental debates in social sciences about agency and structure, work in this field has often remained theoretical. Investigating the role of agency in regional economic development, systematically and at the micro-level, comes with a great deal of challenges. In this paper we ask the question: What are these challenges and how can they be addressed?In an effort to combine general methodological considerations with concrete empirical practicalities, we share our own struggles in developing an adequate methodology for the ReGrow (Regional Growth Against All Odds) project. There we conduct twelve comparative in-depth case studies that zoom in on the role of agency in regional development. In the process of conducting the case studies, we have reflected, revised, and improved the methodology and identified six main challenges: Getting the ontology right, Getting the research design right, Getting the time period right, Getting the spatial scale right, Getting the research instruments right, and Getting the data collection right.In this paper we discuss these challenges in turn, as well as our strategies to overcome them. In doing so, we provide methodological insights and guidance to other scholars of agency and structure in regional development.

A Field Analysis of Journalism in the Automation Age: Understanding Journalistic Transformations and Struggles Through Structure and Agency

Abstract: As an unprecedented amount of information circulates, contemporary newsrooms are turning to automation to manage the data deluge. Amid claims of journalism in crisis, with falling revenues ...

Reflexivity, structure and agency: using reflexivity to understand Further Education students’ Higher Education decision-making and choices

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate Archer’s reflexive modalities in relation to Further Education (FE) students’ higher education (HE) decision-making and choices. To do this, it d...

Narrating political opportunities: explaining strategic adaptation in the climate movement

Abstract: This article advances theory on social movements’ strategic adaptation to political opportunity structures by incorporating a narrative perspective. Our theory explains how people acquire and use knowledge about political opportunity structures through storytelling about the movement’s past, present, and imagined future. The discussion applies the theory in an ethnographic case study of the climate movement’s mobilization around the UN Climate Summit in Paris, 2015. This analysis demonstrates how a dominant narrative of defeat about the prior protest campaign in Copenhagen, 2009 shaped the strategizing process. While those who experienced Copenhagen as a success preferred strategic continuity, those who experienced defeat developed a “Copenhagen narrative” to advance strategic adaptation by projecting previously experienced threats and opportunities onto the Paris campaign. Yet by relying on a retrospective narrative, movement actors tended to overlook emerging political opportunities. We demonstrate that narrative analysis is a useful tool for understanding the link between structure and agency in social movements and other actors affected by (political) opportunity structures.

The Institutional Work of creating and implementing Social Impact Bonds

Abstract: Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) are a new and increasingly popular public policy tool which link payments to outcomes thus, in theory, transferring risk from governments to private investors. This paper draws on the concepts of institutional work and discursive institutionalism to analyse how a SIB influenced the rules, norms and decisions of key actors. It identifies two dominant discourses. One focused on addressing the social determinants of health, the other on creating the financial structure needed to run a SIB. These discourses were congruent at a macro-policy level, but tensions emerged between them at the meso and micro levels. This exemplifies the interdependence of structure and agency in institutional work and the mediating role which discourse plays. It also suggests that the effectiveness of a SIB depends not just on whether it achieves its outcome targets but also on whether it can institute new sets of practices and thinking.

Free Will, Determinism and the “Problem” of Structure and Agency in the Social Sciences:

Abstract: The so-called “problem” of structure and agency is clearly related to the philosophical problem of free will and determinism, yet the central philosophical issues are not well understood by theoris...

Microfoundations of Institutions and the Theory of Action

Abstract: In this article, I argue that progress with microfoundations in institutional theory requires a suitable theory of individual action—i.e., one which overcomes the shortcomings of how agency and structure are typically conceived of. I contend that my previous article on action within institutions (Cardinale, I. 2018. Beyond Constraining and Enabling: Toward New Microfoundations of Institutional Theory. Academy of Management Review, 43: 132-155) provides such a theory. However, the fact that it is a theory of individual action does not imply that the individual level is always the most explanatorily relevant. Rather, the theory provides insights on individual action that are useful—in different ways—no matter the level of analysis. I go on to show how the theory can contribute to the multilevel analysis of institutions.

Understanding the power of the prime minister: structure and agency in models of prime ministerial power

Abstract: Understanding the power of the prime minister is important because of the centrality of the prime minister within the core executive of British government, but existing models of prime ministerial power are unsatisfactory for various reasons. This article makes an original contribution by providing an overview and critique of the dominant models of prime ministerial power, highlighting their largely positivist bent and the related problem of the prevalence of overly parsimonious conceptions of the structural contexts prime ministers face. The central argument the paper makes is that much of the existing literature on prime ministerial power is premised on flawed understandings of the relationship between structure and agency, that this leads to misunderstandings of the real scope of prime ministerial agency, as well as its determinants, and that this can be rectified by adopting a strategic-relational view of structure and agency.

Structure and Agency in Novice Music Teaching.

Abstract: Using multiple interviews and observations, I chronicled the experiences of three novice music teachers in the United States over a 2-year period, including their student teaching internships and f...

A critical realist study of shared decision-making in young people's mental health inpatient units

Abstract: There is little research about shared decision-making with children and young people in mental health services, particularly inpatient units. Shared decision-making involves bringing the knowledge, values and expertise of young people into the decision-making process, and potentially giving them equal weight alongside professional knowledge and evidence. This thesis presents a critical analysis of how young people and staff in mental health inpatient units understood and experienced shared decision-making. The thesis identifies structures, mechanisms, contexts and relationships that enable or constrain young people’s involvement in making decisions. This ethnographic study observed two inpatient units in England. Interviews were held with 16 young people aged 13–17 years and 23 staff. The thematic analysis was informed by Archer’s (2000; 2003) theories of agency and Bhaskar’s (1998) concept of four-planar social being, a framework to explore how structure and agency interact. Shared decision-making requires that the practitioners respect, listen to and take account of the young person’s testimony (their core concerns and inner self). However, the research revealed that these were the very things that were, in many ways, routinely constrained or denied within the environment and systems of inpatient units. Young people’s ability to be involved in decision-making was severely undermined by the significant constraints placed upon them by being displaced in new, unfamiliar and restrictive 3 environments, which limited not only their privacy and movement, but their autonomy, reflexivity, inner being and moral identity as decision-makers. The different ways young people exercised reflexivity are identified, in order to offer new ways of understanding how they responded to constraints and saw their inner self in relation to decision-making.

Poverty and Inequality:Exploring the Role of Tourismin Brazil's Northeast

Abstract: With poverty and inequality continuing to persist around the world, eradicating both has become one of the greatest challenges for humanity. Yet, tourism has been considered as a panacea for achieving development, overcoming poverty and reducing inequality. Nonetheless, it remains unclear as to whether tourism contributes to reducing poverty and inequality or, in fact, increases both. This study explores the relationship between tourism, poverty and inequality from a political economy perspective. A multidimensional view on poverty is adopted and inequality is considered in the distribution of impacts, which is underpinned by Sen's capability approach. The political economy context of this study is analysed by using Frank's dependency theory and by drawing on Giddens' understanding of power in his structuration theory. The study is conducted in a coastal tourist destination in the Northeast of Brazil and applies a mixed-methodological approach that combines quantitative value chain analysis (VCA) and qualitative photo-elicitation and interviews. The results show that tourism has a significant impact on reducing income-poverty through providing job opportunities as micro-entrepreneurs and in un-/ and semi-skilled positions to locals from a non-white background. In contrast, tourism business owners and those in higher managerial positions are people from a white background who have moved to the Northeast. This disparity found mirrors classic development patterns in developing countries and seems to be characteristic of the coastline in Brazil's Northeast. An analysis of the value of tourism-related income through consumption patterns emphasises the importance of tourism for local people to sustain their well-being, whilst business owners and managers do not seem to depend on tourism since they are able to draw on other financial sources. Individual opportunities and wider societal benefits provided by tourism are highly valued by locals, particularly, the opportunity of having access to and contact with the rest of the world through engagement with international tourists. In contrast, tourism business owners and managers place value on living in a natural environment and having a relaxed lifestyle. Despite the value of tourism for both groups, challenges and costs of tourism development are also identified. A key constraint is found to exist in racial disparities, in that the white-skinned elite is perceived to prevent non-white locals from generating income and sustaining their livelihoods. Wider structural constraints for tourism development lie in the dependency of the destination on the municipality and a neighbouring city; nonetheless, despite existing structural constraints, agency becomes evident, suggesting that people exert some degree of power over tourism development and their livelihoods. This study provides deeper understanding of multidimensional poverty, and particularly, in connection to inequality. Furthermore, it adds to existing knowledge on power relations within and between different spatial scales and power as interplay between structure and agency.

Understanding Structure and Agency as Commercial Determinants of Health; Comment on “How Neoliberalism Is Shaping the Supply of Unhealthy Commodities and What This Means for NCD Prevention”

Abstract: The limited success to date, by the public health community, to address the dramatic rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) has prompted growing attention to the commercial determinants of health. This has led to a much needed shift in attention, from metabolic and behavioural risk factors, to the production and consumption of health-harming products by the commercial sector. Building on Lencucha and Thow’s analysis of neoliberalism, in shaping the underlying policy environment favouring commercial interests, we argue for fuller engagement with structure and agency interaction when conceptualising, assessing, and identifying public health measures to address the commercial determinants of health.

Agency and Structure: Principals' Ability to Bring about Sustainable Improvement in Underperforming Schools in South Africa.

Abstract: This article reports on a study of which the purpose was to understand the role of principals in changing underperforming schools towards sustainable improvement in one circuit area of Nort...

Making sense of mixed-embeddedness in migrant informal enterprising: The role of community and capital

Abstract: Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss how informal migrant entrepreneurs with different legal statuses interpret their mixed-embeddedness in social and economic contexts. Legal status represents a key determinant in shaping accessible social networks and market opportunities that in turn influence entrepreneurial choices. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts an interpretative stance to explore how migrant entrepreneurs interpret mixed-embeddedness. It draws on the empirical evidence from a cross-sectional sample of 26 asylum seekers that engaged with enterprising activities in the city of Nottingham in the UK. A recursive hermeneutic process guided the iterative readings of the accounts to develop theoretical insights on how these agents reinvent their relationship with structure. Findings A novel theoretical framework emerges from the data analysis to present how these particular migrants use understandings of community and notions of capital to make sense of their mixed-embeddedness. The main theoretical contribution of the framework is to illustrate how groups with different legal statuses produce unique interpretations of mixed-embeddedness. This, in turn, reflects onto specific forms of enterprising and innovative entrepreneurial choices. The framework also produces an empirical contribution as it re-centres the analysis of mixed-embeddedness around the migrant entrepreneur from previous meso- and macro-level perspectives that dominated recent research. Research limitations/implications The paper expands knowledge on the notion of mixed-embeddedness by providing insights on how informal migrant entrepreneurs make sense of it. This can form the basis for allowing scholars to address empirically how migrant entrepreneurs reconcile their embeddedness in both social and economic contexts. In terms of practical implications, the paper paves the way for policy-makers to re-evaluate the current approach to the right of asylum seekers to pursue entrepreneurial activities. Originality/value The notion of mixed-embeddedness is central to research on informal migrant enterprising. Nevertheless, the concept remains fuzzy and difficult to operationalise. The paper offers an opportunity to understand how migrant entrepreneurs make sense of mixed-embeddedness so that future scholars can better explore how mixed-embeddedness reconciles agency and structure.

Structure and agency in local path development: A comparative study of the online games industry in Shanghai and Hamburg

Abstract: The question of how industry develops differently in different regions is an interesting topic in economic geography. Scholars have contributed enormous knowledge concerning various relatedness, the role of multiple actors and their agencies, and regional industrial preconditions, in contributing to local industrial path development. However, our knowledge on the agency-structure relations present in local industrial development is limited, if not totally lacking, not mentioning how such relations influence the industrial development trajectories and ultimately the overall competitiveness of the local industry. Based on such reflections, this thesis aims to fill such an ‘agency-structure’ gap in local industrial development by looking at the developmental trajectories of one creative industry—online games industry, in two regions that belong to different countries (Shanghai in China and Hamburg in Germany). In both cases, all sorts of misalignments between the focal industry and the institutional frameworks (including both formal and informal institutional elements) could be observed during the industrial development processes. It is under such industry-institution misalignments that the agency and activities of multiple actors have been analyzed. By comparing the two trajectories in different institutional contexts, the research contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, this research gives due attention to the structural forces, such as the formal and informal institutional structures, that affect local industrial development. Secondly, it contributes to a nuanced analysis of agency in local industrial development, including innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship and place leadership. Finally, it reveals the dynamic agency-structure relations, which serve as the causal mechanisms leading to different developmental outcomes in the games industry in the two selected cities.

Organisational dynamics of environmental/sustainability reporting: a case for structure and agency of collective actors

Abstract: This paper reports a research engagement with a Spanish electricity organisation to analyse a dynamic process of structuration within the firm. Structuration for the development of environmental/su...

Modelling the Relations of Fundamental Institutions and International Organizations

Abstract: This chapter models international society as a two-level structure, made up of primary or foundation institutions, as that term was understood by Hedley Bull, and international organizations. It suggests that the two sorts of institutions have a non-deterministic but probabilistic relationship in which primary institutions constrain international organizations, while international organizations introduce changes into primary institutions. The model is a construct out of intimations, suggestions and finally modelling stricto sensu contained in six key arguments concerning the relations of fundamental institutions and international organizations. It is a process model that outlines, in ideal form, how messages are conceived, the routes that they take, when they are likely to be frustrated and by what agency. It suggests both structure and agency and shows how they are related.

Moving beyond the agency-structure dialectic in pre-collegiate science education: positionality, engagement, and emergence

Abstract: Agency and structure postulate a dialectic relationship: agents’ actions shape and are shaped by social structure in a spiral and dynamic manner. Empirical studies in pre-collegiate science educati...

Social values, needs, and sustainable water-energy-food resource utilisation practices : a rural Swazi case study (SPECIAL FEATURE : Theoretical traditions in social values for sustainability)

Abstract: Social values structure sustainability practices, including needs-fulfilment practices utilising water–energy–food nexus resources. However, robust theories outlining the interrelations of values, needs and needs-fulfilment practices are lacking. Our aim is to conceptualise and model these interrelations from a sociological perspective that accounts for structure and agency. We do this through a participatory ethnography of a community-based, child-focused food security intervention in rural Eswatini, which defined sustainability in terms of local water–energy–food self-sufficiency. We collected ethnographic data and analysed it informed by a sociological theory of practice, a capabilities-based definition of needs, and a conceptualisation of values as lived and relational. Daily needs-fulfilment practices (lived values) like head-loading and cooking with fuelwood, were influenced by cultural (community-level) values, but primarily structured by (lack of) available resources to enable agents to choose alternative practices. Needs-fulfilment practices held multiple layers of often contradictory meaning. For example, arduous, gendered practices like head-loading water and fuelwood, which detracted from women’s needs like bodily integrity and health, were valued because they were the only actualisable possibilities for fulfilling other needs. Practices that were overtly valued “instrumentally” (materially/economically), were also tacitly valued for fulfilling non-material (socio-cultural) needs, typically associated with “intrinsic” value and altruism. Apparently altruistic practices (i.e., not economically valued) were underpinned by self-interest in social and cultural resource gain. The results highlight important contributions that a (1) philosophically informed, universal definition of needs and (2) sociological conceptualisation that considers structure and agency, can make to further developing plural theories of social values for sustainability.

How (not) to talk about technology : International Relations and the question of agency

Abstract: In advances in both physical and digital aspects of technology have led to the development of powerful new technologies such as so-called Autonomous Weapons Systems, algorithmic software tools for counterterrorism and security, or “smart” CCTV surveillance. International Relations (IR) answers to “the question concerning technology,” to borrow from M. Heidegger’s seminal essay, have come with quite a degree of variance, depending on assumptions about the essence of the international system, the possibilities and conditions for change or stability, and the general relationship between technology, politics, and society. In IR, agency has been most prominently discussed as part of the “agent-structure problem”. Starting from the question whether human agency or the social structure within which it is embedded determines international action, debates about agency have mostly been concerned with how to situate agency and structure vis-a-vis each other, as well as vis-a-vis monocausal structuralist or intentionalist theories.

Social values, needs, and sustainable water–energy–food resource utilisation practices: a rural Swazi case study

Abstract: Social values structure sustainability practices, including needs-fulfilment practices utilising water–energy–food nexus resources. However, robust theories outlining the interrelations of values, needs and needs-fulfilment practices are lacking. Our aim is to conceptualise and model these interrelations from a sociological perspective that accounts for structure and agency. We do this through a participatory ethnography of a community-based, child-focused food security intervention in rural Eswatini, which defined sustainability in terms of local water–energy–food self-sufficiency. We collected ethnographic data and analysed it informed by a sociological theory of practice, a capabilities-based definition of needs, and a conceptualisation of values as lived and relational. Daily needs-fulfilment practices (lived values) like head-loading and cooking with fuelwood, were influenced by cultural (community-level) values, but primarily structured by (lack of) available resources to enable agents to choose alternative practices. Needs-fulfilment practices held multiple layers of often contradictory meaning. For example, arduous, gendered practices like head-loading water and fuelwood, which detracted from women’s needs like bodily integrity and health, were valued because they were the only actualisable possibilities for fulfilling other needs. Practices that were overtly valued “instrumentally” (materially/economically), were also tacitly valued for fulfilling non-material (socio-cultural) needs, typically associated with “intrinsic” value and altruism. Apparently altruistic practices (i.e., not economically valued) were underpinned by self-interest in social and cultural resource gain. The results highlight important contributions that a (1) philosophically informed, universal definition of needs and (2) sociological conceptualisation that considers structure and agency, can make to further developing plural theories of social values for sustainability.

‘Bitch I’m back, by popular demand’: agency and structure in a study abroad setting

Abstract: This paper explores the gender order and heteronormativity as salient ideologicalstructures affecting identity construction and agency in a study abroadcontext. Drawing on a multi-layered case study of Hugo (a French universityexchange student in New Zealand), I examine interactional and ethnographicdata to shine light on processes involved in negotiating sexuality and genderidentities in both the host and home contexts. Specifically, the analysis allowsinsights into the development of agency within changing structural environmentsduring and after study abroad, and makes the case for a recognitionof the force of ideological constraints. At the same time, I show that 'seeds ofagency', sparked by a destabilisation of habitus, are planted in the study abroadcontext and argue that crossing borders can be the impetus for a liberatingontological excavation of what might be possible. Normal 0 false false false EN-NZ X-NONE X-NONE

Democratic Transition Research: From Western to Post-Soviet East European Scholarship

Abstract: This paper is the first of its kind to provide a comparative overview of Western ( Western European and North American ) and post-Soviet East European transition theories and literature that can be used to understand specifics of post-Soviet transition in Eastern Europe. Bridging the two broad theoretical traditions of East and West, and taking Ukraine as a case study, this literature review adds to the transition literature a discussion that relates to the emergence and interplay of structure and agency theories since the 1950s. In particular, the review sets out the various ways in which the transition from post-Communist government to democracy has been theorized, from a structuralist to an agency-structure approach. Meanwhile, it puts new wind into the sails of the idea that the interplay of structure and agency is more relevant to understanding the transition in Ukraine—reflecting similar dynamics in other post-Communist Eastern European states. This review is a good starting source for those who want to understand the roots of democratic transition research and theories.

Foucault's concepts of structure … and agency?: A critical realist critique

Abstract: What is the relationship between structure and agency? French philosopher Michel Foucault weighed in on this question, and I argue that some of his writings indicate that he held views that were st...

Leadership, Law and Development

Abstract: This article critically examines the role of political leadership in shaping and sustaining institutional reforms While leadership has recently attracted a great deal of attention from other social scientists, law and development scholars have only begun to seriously consider the influence of leaders on institutions and development outcomes The article explores the new mantra that “leadership matters” as cause for both careful optimism and renewed attention to some deeper anxieties about the future directions of law and development On one side, emerging models of leadership provide important insights about how to change dysfunctional institutions and how to sustain those changes over the long run A number of major studies published in the last few years have made some version of the claim that successful reforms inevitably require the dedicated leadership of one or more prominent individuals, positing good leaders as a necessary condition for institutional transitions But the argument that good leadership itself determines good institutions also risks reproducing one of the most obstinate dilemmas in modern social theory: the contest between “structure” and “agency” as causal explanations of social change If the new mantra that “leadership matters” represents a shift in focus away from the structure of law and politics and towards the influence of individual agents’ choices, actions, talents and beliefs, there is good reason to be sceptical about whether simply privileging agency over structure—or the inverse—has any greater chance of success than the many failed attempts to do just that in other fields of knowledge over the past several decades Instead, the present moment could be a valuable opportunity to assess whether alternative and more integrative approaches to the longstanding structure-agency impasse in development law and policy are possible

Exploring Processes Of Desistance By Ethnic Status : The Confluence of Community, Familial and Individual Processes

Abstract: Although studies of desistance have routinely focussed on how family formation, gaining employment, moving away from criminal friends and identity reconstruction support stopping offending, they have up until recently been less vocal in how meso- and macro-level structural influences might shape these and other processes that we know are related to desistance. This is arguably a somewhat surprising oversight in attention, given the known interaction between structure and agency in producing such processes, and one that is now being duly being addressed (see Farrall et al., 2011, 2014; Chapter 1). However, any exploration of how various structural forces affect desistance needs a framework through which to view, compare and examine these processes. This chapter argues that ethnicity provides an appropriate optic for illuminating our understanding. It reports on a study which explored desistance amongst male offenders from three of the UK’s largest ethnic minority groups: Black-British, Bangladeshis and Indians. Its findings suggest that desistance, whilst embodying agency, is also shaped in crucially important ways by community and familial resources and cultural processes.

Structure and agency: Clash or complement towards quality public education within the South African legislative framework?

Abstract: In the current South African society, characterised by typical neo-liberal market-driven priorities also forced upon the education sector, the search for quality education needs careful consideration. This search has taken a prominent focus in robust academic, public, political, and school governance debates in South Africa for the past 2 decades. Officials of the Department of Basic Education (DBE) admit that, despite noteworthy efforts, it fails in providing quality education for all learners. Key stakeholders in education neglect their professional duties. This paper investigates factors related to (dominating) structure and (a lack of) agency that might be deterrents to attainment of quality education. Bureaucratic and labour structures often deny professional educators their agency. The central question is what the nature of the impact, if any, of the conflicting powers of structure and agency is on quality public education. It was found that the conflict between structure and agency often have a negative effect on the delivery of quality education but that the advantages of both structure and agency, once reconciled, might lead to the improvement of the delivery of quality education in South Africa. Keywords: agency; legislation; quality education; structure; unionism