Structure and agency

Who controls your destiny?

Dr. Chris McMillan

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It is very important that you attend seminars

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The basis of these seminars is discussion of core sociological readings

◦ These are often reading from major sociologists, and you may need some guidance

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Instructions for the seminars are on Blackboard, as are the readings

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Trouble finding readings?

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Student society?

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Course reps?

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Define the sociological concepts of structure and agency and consider the relationship between them

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Consider the different approaches for understanding structure and agency

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Understand the importance of these concepts for producing sociological explanations of social life and understanding political responses to social issues

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Structure and agency are highly contested notions – there is no one settled answer.

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In this session we will review a range of theories and positions on structure and agency

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We will use these positions to consider a variety of social issues

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This session will be the basis for your first essay

Explain and critically discuss the distinction between agency and structure in modern social life by reference to an event or debate discussed in the news media during October 2012.

Seminar

Readings Lecture

- Week 2

• Hays • Giddens

- Week 4

Structure is a metaphor for understanding the social influences that ‘structure’ and organise human behaviour

Structures are the patterning arrangements that influence our capacity to act

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We have individual bodies and have the potential to act independently

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Agency is the capacity to act otherwise: It requires both a choice and the capacity to act on that choice

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The notions of individual choice, responsibility and rights are fundamental to Western culture

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Our lives are clearly patterned and structured in some ways

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The question is how much do these structures determine our behaviour

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This question is at the core of several debates in sociology and beyond

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The structure/agency dualism is similar to that expressed in the nature vs. nurture debate in philosophy and the social sciences

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Are we ‘born this way’ e.g. As males and females, or selfish and power hungry, or is our behaviour socially constructed?

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Some argue that we have a specific ‘human nature’ that limits the potential for progressive politics action

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It is often argued that humanity is naturally selfinterested, which is why capitalism has been so successful: it follows human nature

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Consequently, any attempt to reform economies against this natural self-interest is likely to be resisted

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Conversely, others contend that as human behaviour is socially constructed any self-interested behaviour in capitalism is caused by the patterns generated in that form of economy

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The struggle between structure and agency is a highly political issue that allows us to understand the importance of sociological ideas

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Are people responsible for the consequences of their actions?

◦ Should governments therefore act only to ensure freedom of choice?

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If social structures have a greater influences, should governments act to influence these structures?

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Is unemployment and poverty caused by social institutions and social norms, or is it due to personal deficiencies?

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Does this influence decisions on welfare policy, or education spending?

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Does criminal behaviour stem from naturally bad people, irresponsible behaviour or societal failures?

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How would our response to this question influence the way we respond to crime in society?

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Choosing either unemployment or crime, write for one-minute about whether structure (social influences) or agency (individual actions) is more influential

Arrange yourself on the stairs from North to South by place of birth

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You will each receive a distribution of lollipops

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The aim of the game is to accumulate as many as possible of the same colour

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Be creative and use whatever means you feel will be effective or fair

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The winner will receive the prize

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What factors determined the outcome of the game? ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Starting ‘wealth’?

Rules?

Social norms Individual behaviour

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Did social structures form?

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What role was there for human agency?

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Macro: Institutions, systems and resources ◦ Class structures, racial hierarchies, gender inequalities, education, law, media…

Macro

Micro

•Micro: Norms, roles and rules Manners, sense of self, culture

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There are a number of theoretical approaches for understanding the debate ◦ Structuralism ◦ Functionalism ◦ Conflict theories – Marxism ◦ Symbolic interaction

◦ Structuration

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Functionalist’s argued that society can be viewed as a system

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As a consequence, social institutions such as education or the law have a purpose within society

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As such, functionalism focuses on the way in which social structures create regular patterns of behaviour

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Functionalist’s such as Talcott Parsons set out to explain how society maintains its cohesion

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Durkheim argued that crime has a functional purpose

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By identifying criminal behaviour and excluding criminals, social values are able to be affirmed ◦ e.g. What is and is not acceptable

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Here crime is relative to society: a political decision about what behaviour is allowed

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Similar processes occur in social situations where we ‘police’ what is and is not acceptable behaviour

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Structure was one of the core themes of classical sociology as early sociologists like Emile Durkheim sought to establish ‘social facts’

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In his famous study of suicide, Durkheim took an individual act and investigated the social patterns that occurred

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Through this analysis he was able to establish social facts from which we can consider the structural influences upon individual actions

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Durkheim not only established different kinds of suicide… ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Egoistic Anomic Altruistic Fatalistic

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…but also identified areas and groups (more Protestants than Catholics) more prone to suicide

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This is a structural analysis of individual behaviour

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But always down to a distinct human decision

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Functionalism suggests that society is reproduced via social norms, traditions and institutions ◦ Structures produce social action

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Talcott Parsons in particular attempted to explain how social structures are reproduced through the process of socialisation, such as within the family

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Socialisation: Passing on the rules of social behaviour

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These process did not leave much room for resistance, action or deviance

Structures

Structures

Human Action

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Marx argued that the economic organisation of capitalism structures social life

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Economic structures determine what Marx called ‘the super-structure’, which then socialises behaviour

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Nonetheless, Marxism is a theory of conflict, resistance and struggle, so space remains for action

Human Behaviour

Politics

Family

Culture

Economic Base (Capitalism Mode of Production)

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Marx argued that the economic base determined the superstructure (and thus human action) through ideology ◦ Ideology: The frameworks of ideas through which we make sense of the world

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Yet, Marx suggested that because there are contradictions within structures, there is always the possibility of rejecting structural forces ◦ Structures allow the potential for agency

“[People] make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.�

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852)

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In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.

Marx, Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)

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Marxist’s argue that unemployment occurs because of a lack of jobs in the economy

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Individuals characteristics might decide who is unemployed, but not that there is unemployment

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Consequently, blaming the unemployed for their circumstances is unjust: we should attack the systems that allow for unemployment itself

“I come here to apologise for the destruction of industry under Thatcher’s rule in the 1980’s…We talk about people being at risk of poverty, or social exclusion: it’s as if these things – obesity, alcohol abuse, drug addiction – are purely external events, like the plague, or bad weather. Of course, circumstances, where you’re born, your neighbourhood, your school and the choices your parents make – have a huge impact. But social problems are often the consequence of choices people make”

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David Cameron is suggesting that individuals are responsible for their own behaviour and thus implies that individuals have agency to act within the circumstances they are presented

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By contrast, Marx argues that it is economic structures that determines employment and poverty

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Which explanation do you prefer?

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Structural analysis was the basis of classical sociological explanations

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By contrast, agency is a difficult concept for many sociologists because, at its extremes, it rejects the idea of society

◦ Thatcher: There is no such thing as society

“Let me completely condemn these sickening scenes; scenes of looting, scenes of vandalism, scenes of thieving, scenes of people attacking police, of people even attacking firefighters. This is criminality pure and simple and it has to be confronted�

Why might conservative, or right-wing politicians, focus more on agency than structure?

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Do structures exist outside of human behaviour?

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Much of sociological thought has attempted to explain the way that human behaviour influences structures

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Every ‘structure’ has to be reproduced by human action, which always has an element of choice

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‘The capacity to act otherwise’ (Giddens)

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To have this capacity is to have power

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We have seen how structures influence human behaviour from thoughts to feelings and actions

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However, there is little room of human action outside of socialisation and the reproduction of society

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In response, sociologists have focused on the capacity to engage in transformative action

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Understanding the capacity for transformative action requires a theory of the interaction between structure and agency

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How much control do you have over your own actions?

Is there a limit to this control?

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Symbolic interactionism emerged largely as a response to functionalism ◦ If functionalism reflected the social order of the 1950s, symbolic interactionism became popular in the more free-spirited 60s and 70s

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Symbolic interactionism is a micro-sociological response to the structure and agency debate

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It attempts to explain how social structures, at least at a micro-level, are reproduced and transformed through the interactions, or agency, of individuals

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Starts with the assumption that human life is social, but experienced on an individual level

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Rather than structures being external to individuals, they are produced through individual actions

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We interact with others on the basis of shared meanings established in culture

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As symbolic, thinking, animals, we are able to act reflexively on these meaning to transform or reproduce them

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This transformative capacity does not mean that we are rational, however.

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Instead our actions are based on pre-established meanings or code known as social norms

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As thinking or symbolic animals, we are able to reflect on these norms and transform them in our practice

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New forms of media have particularly enhanced this process

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHZfwqS9TY&feature=related

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What does the capacity to break social norms suggest about human agency?

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What about our reactions to these breaches?

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When can you not break social norms?

Human Behaviour

Social norms and meanings

Social norms and meanings

Reflexive Action

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As a micro-sociological approach, symbolic interactionism places too much emphasis on our capacity to transform social structures

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In considering agency, it over-estimates our power to overcome institutional structures

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Anthony Giddens’ ‘structuration theory’ attempts to overcome these difficulties

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Sharon Hays (the reading) also emphasises the difference between ‘structurally reproductive agency’ and structurally transformative agency’

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This distinction is the basis of Anthony Giddens’ theory of ‘structuration’, which attempts to consider the interactions between structure and agency

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Giddens has attempted to provide a ‘unified theory’ of structure and agency by considering larger structural factors whilst insisting on the role of human action

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“Agency refers not to the intentions people have for doing things, but to the capability they have in the first place” (Giddens, 1984, p.9)

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In this sense agency is requires the power to act

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This power can only be established within structures, some of which allow a greater capacity for action

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Giddens’ defines structures as the ‘rules (norms) and resources (things that serve as a source of power)’ that become embodied by individual actions

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Resources: ◦ Allocative (power of things) ◦ Authoritative (power over people)

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Rules are activated only through resources, rules are only seen in resources.

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Structures are only reproduced at the moment of action = structural properties that produce ‘systems’

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Structural properties are the consequence of the repetitive acts of individual actions

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But do ‘resources’ exist outside of people? e.g. the law or in buildings

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How would structuration theory explain criminal acts or the existence of unemployment?

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Which of these approaches seems to make the most sense?

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Would you wish to take parts of each theory?

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Structure is the patterning arrangements that influence our capacity to act

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Agency is the capacity to act otherwise: It requires both a choice and the capacity to act on that choice

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Functionalism suggests that structures have a functional purpose that is reproduced through the socialisation of individuals

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Marxism argues that economic structures determine behaviour, but the contradictions within these structures leave room for agency

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Symbolic interactionism contends that structure are reproduced or transformed only through individuals interactions

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Structuration brings together structure and agency by arguing that structures are only produced in the moment of action

Global sociology - Cohen, Robin, Chapter Three and Sociology – Fulcher and Scott 2011 Chapter 2 chapter 16, pages 597-605; and chapter 17, pages 648-653 on capitalism; and chapter 13 on cities and modernity.

Sociology - Giddens and Sutton 2009 Chapters Three and Four Sociology: a global introduction – Macionis and Plummer, Chapter one

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Where does nature come into this ?

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If something is natural, does this mean we have a choice?

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Is nature structure or agency? ◦ It reduced behaviour to the individual, yet we able to have little control ◦ Natural compulsions ‘structure’ our behaviour