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.

Solitary practices or social connections? : a comparative study of fathering and health experiences among white and African-Caribbean working class men

Abstract: This study addresses the following research question: what are the implications of African- Caribbean and White working class men's experiences within social connections (within families, friendships, communities and workplaces), for fathering and health experiences? The purposes of this study were to undertake a primary piece of intensive qualitative research, and also to analyse, critically, the study's findings, in order to identify implications for theory, policy, practice and research. This investigation was critical, interpretative and exploratory, informed by the principles of phenomenology and ethnography. Six African-Caribbean and seven White working class men were recruited, using purposive sampling, for two semi-structured individual interviews. This enabled the exploration of the interactive effects and processes of structure and agency, in relation to social class, gender, and ethnicity. The study did not find major differences between the experiences of these two groups of men, although the assets and constraints related to African-Caribbean men's experiences of ethnicity and racism within social connections were evident. Study findings, for both groups of men, indicated that social connectedness within families, communities and workplaces was highly valued, but social connections, material and structural factors also influenced the health of the men interviewed. Furthermore, findings indicated that men's experiences of social connectedness have limitations. Specifically, men's limited insights into the links between social connectedness and health, men's perceived limitations with their communication skills, their solitary methods of dealing with perceived vulnerability, but also the uncertainty associated with their identities as men were significant findings. Indeed, men's experiences of both solitary discourses and practices and social connectedness, regarding fathering and health, were associated with discourses about masculinities. Implications for existing theory, for example Connell's (1995) work regarding masculinities, and Putnam's (1995) work regarding `social capital', are identified. In addition, implications for research, policy and practice are examined, with specific reference to the opportunities for mental health promotion with working class men who are fathers.

State and Dissent: Structure and Agency in the Development of Contemporary Chinese NVA

Abstract: With the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party concluded on 15th November 2012 and the birth of a new Politburo Standing Committee, the Party thus completed its second orderly hand-over of power in more than six decades of its rule over this most populous country in the world, and now, the world's second largest economic entity. However, also mark the year 2012 are various other poignant events that further strain State-civil society relations in this vast country: the suicide of Zha Weilin, the mysterious death of Li Wangyang, the daring escape of Chen Guangcheng from captivity in Shandong, the Victoria Park commemoration of June Fourth with a record attendance, intensification of public protests – mainly related to forced demolition and relocation, industrial pollution and official corruption – apparently emboldened by the solution to late 2011’s Siege of Wukan and the continuing self-immolation of Tibetans since 2009. This paper explores the arduous development of contemporary Chinese nonviolent action (NVA) movements against the backdrop of these events. Seeing contemporary Chinese NVA not as a multiattribute concept, but a multiconcept construct covering a spectrum of civil actions with different ideological and strategic orientations, the paper analyzes the Chinese State-civil society relations with particular emphasis along the pathway of a State domination-NVA assertion nexus with due attention paid to its macro-micro linkages in particular from the interpretive perspective, taking into consideration the problem of structure and agency, taking cognizance of the central role played by individual political actors in giving existence to the system, and the inability for the causal powers of systems and structures to exist without the mediation through the Archerian human agency whose causal powers, in turn, are indeducible from or irreducible to the causal powers of society.

Reflexivity as situated problem-solving: A pragmatist alternative to general theory

Abstract: Recent developments in sociological theory have addressed the linkage between structure and agency via a conception of reflexivity and the agent’s internal conversation as a means of understanding the (variable) contribution that the self and its powers contribute to social outcomes. In this paper, I present a sociological realism utilising the approach of American pragmatism (Dewey and Mead) to argue for a different way of conceptualising reflexivity, namely as an occasioned feature of interaction. On this view, reflexivity arises in relation to problems in interaction and is oriented to their resolution. It is argued that the self has a social structure and that reflexivity inheres in interactions and not in different types of individual self-identity. The paper discusses general issues of reflexivity in terms of conceptions of sociology’s “dialogic.” Archer’s relation to actors whose behaviours are under scrutiny, before going on to discuss Margaret Archer’s typology of the “inner dialogues” of actors and its use to understand social mobility.

Transforming power: Social science and the politics of energy choices

Abstract: This paper addresses key implications in momentous current global energy choices – both for social science and for society. Energy can be over-used as a lens for viewing social processes. But it is nonetheless of profound importance. Understanding possible ‘sustainable energy’ transformations requires attention to many tricky issues in social theory: around agency and structure and the interplay of power, contingency and practice. These factors are as much shaping of the knowledges and normativities supposedly driving transformation, as they are shaped by them. So, ideas and hopes about possible pathways for change – as well as notions of ‘the transition’ itself – can be deeply constituted by incumbent interests. The paper addresses these dynamics by considering contending forms of transformation centring on renewable energy, nuclear power and climate geoengineering. Several challenges are identified for social science. These apply especially where there are aims to help enable more democratic exercise of social agency.

Structure and Agency in Modern Greek Education

Abstract: In a recent editorial in Comparative Education P. Broadfoot highlighted the traditional social tension between structure and agency, "between the external directives to institutions that shape the social space and the individual's capacity to choose; to be self-determining" (Broadfoot 2002, p. 5). She concluded that both the academic community and educational policy makers around the world are today faced with two great challenges: the first, "to set out a defining vision of what education could be like in the twenty-first century," and the second, to find ways "to strengthen agency rather than structure, and to produce individuals who are committed, confident, and flexible learners" (Broadfoot 2002, p. 6).