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.

Structure and Agency in Everyday Life: An Introduction to Social Psychology

Abstract: Chapter 1 1 Introduction to Symbolic Interactionism Part I 2 Part I: The Social Nature of Human Nature Chapter 2 3 The Social and Ideological Context of Symbolic Interactionism Chapter 3 4 William James and James Mark Baldwin Chapter 4 5 Charles Horton Cooley, W.I. Thomas, and John Dewey Chapter 5 6 George Herbert Mead Part II 7 Part II: Macrosociological Structres Chapter 6 8 Society: The Structural Context of Interaction Chapter 7 9 Structures of Social Interaction Chapter 8 10 Contemporary Conceptions of the Self Chapter 9 11 Mind Part III 12 Part III: Socialization Chapter 10 13 Interactionism and the Child: Cahill, Corsaro, and Denzin on Childhood Socialization Chapter 11 14 Socialization and Emotions Chapter 12 15 Gender and Power Part IV 16 Part IV: Deviance Chapter 13 17 The Interactionist Conception of Deviance Chapter 14 18 Conclusion

A Child's Growing Up with a Parent Who Has Multiple Sclerosis: Theories and experiences

Abstract: Some theorists have provided insight into the phenomenon of disability, and others have provided conceptual notions of childhood. Still others have provided theoretical expectations of what life is like for a child when mother or father has a disability or chronic illness. When children whose parents have multiple sclerosis described their own experiences, much of what theorists had postulated was a poor fit with children's responses. This paper will explore differences between children's descriptions of life with a parent who has MS, and the theoretical expectations of what their lives should be like according to previous literature. The paper concludes with the suggestions that historical sociology, with its recognition of both agency and structure interacting over time, may be an effective way to understand anyone's place on the disability/empowerment continuum, and may serve to illuminate the pathway of children with disabled parents in particular.

Choosing to Labour: Structure and Agency in School-Work Transitions

Abstract: We still know relatively little about how young people rationalize their educational and occupational plans and what this might tell us about the relationship between structure and agency in school-work transitions. In this paper, based on a multi-method comparison of youth apprentices in Canada and Germany, the range of school-work transition alternatives realistically under consideration was circumscribed by socio-economic status, habitus, cultural capital, and institutional factors. While their vocational choices reproduced their class position, youth apprentices nevertheless saw their entry into the trades as an expression of a preference for, and identity with, working-class ideals of manual work. Further analysis suggests, however, that these narratives can also be interpreted as post-facto rationalization strategies in response to public discourses that equate life course success with ever higher levels of educational attainment.

For “Central Conflation”: A Critique of Archerian Dualism

Abstract: Taking a side in the debate over ontological emergentism in social theory, this article defends an outlook that Margaret S. Archer has dubbed “central conflation”: an antidualistic position appreciating the interdependency of agency and structure, individuals and society. This has been a popular outlook in recent years, advocated broadly by such theorists as Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Collins, and Anthony Giddens. However, antidualism has been challenged by those who believe the key to success in social science lies in level-ontological emergentism. Archer’s own morphogenetic theory is an explicitly dualist version of that approach. I answer Archer’s arguments for emergentism, in so doing clearing a path for the even fuller acceptance of antidualism by theorists.

Fostering structurally transformative teacher agency through science professional development

Abstract: This study draws on data from a 10-month critical narrative inquiry of science teaching and learning in a third grade, dual language, integrated co-teaching classroom. The teachers were participants in a 14-week science professional development seminar that enrolled inservice and preservice teachers and focused on enhancing science teaching and learning in the classroom while drawing on the unique resources of the city. Data for the study include classroom audiotape, student work samples, audiotape of teacher planning meetings, semi-structured interviews, and a team portfolio. Data were analyzed using constant comparative methods. The findings illustrate a dialectical relationship between agency and structure and show a transition from more structurally reproductive toward more structurally transformative teacher agency over time. The emphasis on literacy in the school, the dual language program, and teachers' lack of science content knowledge tended to promote structurally reproductive agency, whereas the teachers' participation in a science professional development program and the unique context of a museum climate change exhibit fostered more structurally transformative teacher agency. Student agency was greatest when teachers engaged in more structurally transformative forms of agency. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 545–559, 2015