Structure and agency

About: Structure and agency is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1265 publications have been published within this topic receiving 63660 citations.

Rethinking agency and structure in the study of regime change

Abstract: The oscillation of the study of political regime change between voluntarist and structural approaches has increasingly led scholars to seek research strategies for synthesizing the two approaches. This article addresses the conceptual and practical difficulties of achieving such a synthesis by evaluating several strategies for integrating voluntarist and structural factors in the analysis of regime change. It examines competing ways of conceptualizing agency and structure and assesses the varied consequences that different conceptualizations have for explaining regime transformation. The article also analyzes three distinct strategies for integrating agency and structure: the funnel, path-dependent, and eclectic strategies. Each integrative strategy isanchored by a different conceptual base and has characteristic strengths and limitations. The conclusion explores future directions for developing integrative strategies.

Transitions in the lifecourse: the role of identity, agency and structure

Abstract: This book has its origins in a seminar series on transitions through the lifecourse which was part of the UK Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP; see www.tlrp.org). It aims to bring together and evaluate insights about educational, life and work transitions from different elds of research and a range of theoretical orientations. The book responds to the injunction that researchers need to chart ‘what individuals actually do and how this is changing’ as a ‘rst step to understanding what it means’ (Bynner quoted by Hayward et al. 2005: 115). In different ways, the chapters that follow explore the concept of transitions and its contemporary importance in policy and educational practices. In doing so they enable the book to address the following questions:What are the main characteristics of transitions depicted in policy, practice • and research? How do different ideas and perspectives about transition, people’s agency, • identity and the effects of structural conditions help us to understand transitions better in research, policy and practice? Why are transitions a problem for some individuals and groups and, • conversely, for whom are transitions not a problem? What interventions, activities or practices are seen as useful in dealing with • transitions? What aspects of transitions are contested from different perspectives?•This book arose from a recognition that the research eld around transitions is fragmented both historically and between disciplines and theoretical orientations. The book does not claim to represent a unitary view about transitions in the lifecourse. Rather, it brings together policy, professional and academic concerns about transitions in the lifecourse through the conceptual lenses of identity, agency and structure. The theorising and ndings about transition, and the questions they raise about new forms of support, management and pedagogy, offered in the book, are meant to provide a basis for further thinking and empirical study.

Human agency and human geography

Abstract: This commentary discusses the prospectus for a humanistic geography provided by the contributors to D. Ley, M. Samuels (eds) Humanistic geography: prospects and problems. The resurgence of a humanist tradition in geography has drawn its impetus in part from la giographie humaine of Vidal de la Blache, and an examination of the connections between the two conceptions shows a common concern with the efficacy of human agency within an essential 'boundedness' of practical life. A series of parallel developments within 'Marxian humanism' (and in particular the work of E.P. Thompson) is used to suggest that a scientific explication of the relations between agency and structure can be attained through the deployment of a concept of structuration. But this will also require a concept of determination capable of incorporating 'economy' and 'culture' within a single system of concepts, which presages a critical return to the traditional materialism of la giographie humaine.

The Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption

Abstract: 1. Understanding control of corruption 2. Diagnosis and measurement 3. The road to Denmark: historical paths to corruption control 4. Structure and agency: determining control of corruption 5. Understanding contemporary achievers 6. Domestic collective action capacity 7. International agency and its anticorruption impact 8. From critical mess to critical mass: some tentative policy conclusions.

Reconceptualising Structure and Agency in the Sociology of Education: structuration theory and schooling

Abstract: Since the 1970s there has been considerable debate among sociologists of education about the macro‐micro gap in educational analyses. However, educational research remains divided largely into the study of large‐scale phenomena such as social systems and national policies on the one hand, and case‐studies of individual schools and social interaction on the other. This split has had a number of unfortunate consequences for the development of the field. Most importantly, the dominant conceptions of structure and agency employed in the sociology of education are characterised by a dualism which makes it difficult to conceptualise adequately the processes involved in social change. In this paper, I briefly describe this structure‐agency dualism before critically examining three attempts which have been made to address this problem. The ability of structuration theory to overcome this dualism is then examined, and I conclude by arguing that this approach offers an important new direction for the sociology of e...