Credits, references, and bibliography

Anthony Giddens (another)

Structuration Theory (another view)

Giddens on Parsons (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy_UzSm0NnY)

• The Constitution of Society (1984) (local)(review)
• Duality (agency and structure are inseparable)
• Recursive
  • Social practices are not created "mentally" by people
  • They are not products of the structural context
  • By expressing ourselves--through our situated action, we create consciousness and the structures in which (and through which) our behavior (practices) takes place.
  • " Human practices are recursive - that is, through their activities individuals create both their consciousness and the structural conditions that make their activities possible.  Because social actors are reflexive and monitor the ongoing flow of activities and structural conditions, they adapt their actions to their evolving understandings" (1)
• Double hermeneutic: Both actors and social scientists are reflexive, we all "account" for our actions (and the actions of others). The accounts of social scientists can be (and are) taken into account by actors, thereby altering social practices and the structures in which and through which these practices take place. (2, page 169) (reflexive modernization)

Elements of Structuration Theory (basic points, another view, more help, local)

• Rationalization
  • Routines that produce a sense of security and enable efficiency in EDL
  • Versus motivations (plans for action)
  • Most action not directly motivated
• Discursive consciousness: describe actions in words
• Practical consciousness: taken-for granted actions--doing vs. saying
• Agency: what agents actually do--not (necessarily) what is intended.
• Unanticipated consequences: results of agency differentiating what is done from what is intended
• Agents: actors with the ability to exercise power--make a difference (versus their intent or the constraining force of external structure)
• Structure
  • (duality) "structuring properties (specifically, rules and resources) that give similar social practices a systemic form" (2, page 170)
  • Structures do not exist in time or space--they allow practices to exist across time and space
  • "Social phenomena have the capacity to become structured" (2, page 170)--through the practices of actors
  • Structures give shape and form, but are not the shape or form ("nothing"..."A social form that is generally centrally conceived, controlled, and comparatively devoid of distinctive substantive content."(3, page 3)
  • Structure does not exist independently of the actor. Structures are enabling and constraining.
  • Actors can lose control (distanciation), but this is not inevitable
  • Structures part of the memories of agents
• Social systems: reproduced social practices (similar to traditional "structure" in sociology)
  • Regularities in social practice across time and space.
  • Structures become "manifested" in social systems (instantiated)
  • Typically unintended--unrecognized conditions of action--loop back to condition action
• Structuration: duality of agency and structure--by acting we produce the structure that defines, shapes and directs our action.
  • "Giddens's Structuration Theory and Information Systems Research" (2008)
• Social order: how well social systems are integrated over time and space.

Culture and Agency

• Dualism
• Dualities

"The concept of structuration underscores the duality of structure and agency.  There can be no agency without structures that shape motives into practices, but there can also be no structures independent of the routine practices that create them.  Margaret Archer has criticized the concept of structuration as analytically insufficient.  She thinks it is useful for social scientists to understand structure and agency as independent, because it makes it possible to analyze the interrelations between the two sides.  Archer also thinks that Giddens gives short shrift to the relative autonomy of culture from both structure and agency." (1)

quiz

JSTOR Articles

1. Christopher G. A. Bryant. 1992. "Sociology without Philosophy? The Case of Giddens's Structuration Theory." Sociological Theory, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 137-149. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/201955. Accessed: 29/10/2008 12:01.
2. Anthony Giddens. 1985. "Marx's Correct Views on Everything: (With Apologies to L. Kolowkowski)." Theory and Society, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Mar., 1985), pp. 167-174. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/657088.
   Accessed: 29/10/2008 11:58.
3. Margaret S. Archer. 1982. "Morphogenesis versus Structuration: On Combining Structure and Action." The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Dec., 1982), pp. 455-483. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/589357.
   Accessed: 29/10/2008 11:49.
4. Margaret S. Archer. 1985. "The Myth of Cultural Integration." The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Sep., 1985), pp. 333-353. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/590456.
   Accessed: 29/10/2008 12:06.
5. Peter K. Manning. 1982. "Organizational Work: Structuration of Environments." The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Mar., 1982), pp. 118-134. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/589339
   Accessed: 29/10/2008 12:08

Web links

Anthony Giddens: http://www.theory.org.uk/giddens.htm

The Website for Critical Realism: http://www.raggedclaws.com/criticalrealism/index.php?sitesig=WSCR (the perspective from which Margaret Archer offers her critique of Giddens).

Homepage of Margaret Archer: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academicstaff/archer/

Works Cited

1. Much of this page comes from the "Instructor's Manual" to accompany Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The Basics, Second Edition, George Ritzer, Mcgraw-Hill, 2007. The Instructor's Manual was prepared by James Murphy, University of Maryland, College Park and Todd Stillman, Fayetteville State University. These excerpts are from chapter 7.
2. Ritzer, George. 2007/2010/2013. Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The Basics. 2nd/3rd/4th editions. St. Louis: McGraw-Hill
3. Ritzer, George. 2004. The Globalization of Nothing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge.

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