The theory of structuration is a
social theory
Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena.Seidman, S., 2016. Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley & Sons. A tool used by social scientists, social theories rela ...
of the creation and reproduction of social systems that is based on the analysis of both ''
structure
A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...
'' and ''
agents'' (see
structure and agency
In the social sciences there is a standing debate over the primacy of structure or agency in shaping human behaviour. ''Structure'' is the recurrent patterned arrangements which influence or limit the choices and opportunities available. '' Agency ...
), without giving primacy to either. Furthermore, in structuration theory, neither
micro
Micro may refer to:
Measurement
* micro- (μ), a metric prefix denoting a factor of 10−6
Places
* Micro, North Carolina, town in U.S.
People
* DJ Micro, (born Michael Marsicano) an American trance DJ and producer
*Chii Tomiya (都宮 ちい ...
- nor
macro-focused analysis alone is sufficient. The theory was proposed by
sociologist Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is t ...
, most significantly in ''The Constitution of Society'',
which examines
phenomenology
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
,
hermeneutics
Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...
, and social practices at the inseparable intersection of structures and agents. Its proponents have adopted and expanded this balanced position.
[Stones, R. (2005). ''Structuration theory.'' New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.] Though the theory has received much criticism, it remains a pillar of contemporary
sociological theory
A sociological theory is a that intends to consider, analyze, and/or explain objects of social reality from a sociological perspective,Macionis, John and Linda M. Gerber. 2010. ''Sociology'' (7th Canadian ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson E ...
.
[Bryant, C.G.A., & Jary, D. (1991). Coming to terms with Anthony Giddens. In C.G.A. Bryant & D. Jary (Eds.), ''Giddens' theory of structuration: A critical appreciation'' (pp. 1-32). New York, NY: Routledge.]
Premises and origins
Sociologist
Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is t ...
adopted a
post-empiricist frame for his theory, as he was concerned with the abstract characteristics of social relations. This leaves each level more accessible to analysis via the
ontologies
In computer science and information science, an ontology encompasses a representation, formal naming, and definition of the categories, properties, and relations between the concepts, data, and entities that substantiate one, many, or all domains ...
which constitute the human social experience: space and time ("and thus, in one sense, 'history'.")
His aim was to build a broad social theory which viewed "
e basic domain of study of the social sciences...
sneither the experience of the individual actor, nor the existence of any form of societal totality, but social practices ordered across space and time."
His focus on abstract
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
accompanied a general and purposeful neglect of
epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
or detailed
research methodology
In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
.
Giddens used concepts from
objectivist
Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement ...
and
subjectivist
Subjectivism is the doctrine that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience", instead of shared or communal, and that there is no external or objective truth.
The success of this position is historically attribute ...
social theories, discarding objectivism's focus on detached structures, which lacked regard for humanist elements and subjectivism's exclusive attention to individual or group agency without consideration for socio-structural context. He critically engaged classical nineteenth and early twentieth century social theorists such as
Auguste Comte
Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense ...
,
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
,
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
,
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...
,
Alfred Schutz
Alfred may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*''Alfred J. Kwak'', Dutch-German-Japanese anime television series
* ''Alfred'' (Arne opera), a 1740 masque by Thomas Arne
* ''Alfred'' (Dvořák), an 1870 opera by Antonín Dvořák
*"Alfred (Interlu ...
,
Robert K. Merton
Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick; July 4, 1910 – February 23, 2003) was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of modern sociology, and a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as th ...
,
Erving Goffman
Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born sociology, sociologist, Social psychology (sociology), social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth ...
, and
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere.
Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wor ...
.
Thus, in many ways, structuration was "an exercise in clarification of logical issues."
[Giddens, A. (1993). ''New rules of sociological method: A positive critique of interpretative sociologies.'' Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.] Structuration drew on other fields, as well: "He also wanted to bring in from other disciplines novel aspects of ontology that he felt had been neglected by social theorists working in the domains that most interested him. Thus, for example, he enlisted the aid of geographers, historians and philosophers in bringing notions of time and space into the central heartlands of social theory."
Giddens hoped that a subject-wide "coming together" might occur which would involve greater cross-disciplinary dialogue and cooperation, especially between
anthropologists
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and v ...
, social scientists and sociologists of all types, historians, geographers, and even novelists. Believing that "literary style matters", he held that social scientists are communicators who share frames of meaning across cultural contexts through their work by utilising "the same sources of description (mutual knowledge) as novelists or others who write fictional accounts of social life."
Structuration differs from its historical sources. Unlike structuralism it sees the reproduction of social systems not "as a mechanical outcome,
utrather ... as an active constituting process, accomplished by, and consisting in, the doings of active subjects."
Unlike
Althusser
Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy.
Althusser ...
's concept of agents as "bearers" of structures, structuration theory sees them as active participants. Unlike the
philosophy of action
Action theory (or theory of action) is an area in philosophy concerned with theories about the processes causing willful human bodily movements of a more or less complex kind. This area of thought involves epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, j ...
and other forms of
interpretative sociology
''Verstehen'' (, ), in the context of German philosophy and social sciences in general, has been used since the late 19th century – in English as in German – with the particular sense of the "interpretive or participatory" examination of socia ...
, structuration focuses on structure rather than production exclusively. Unlike
Saussure's production of an utterance, structuration sees language as a tool from which to view society, not as the constitution of society—parting with
structural linguists such as
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthro ...
and
generative grammar
Generative grammar, or generativism , is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguistic ...
theorists such as
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
. Unlike
post-structuralist
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...
theory, which put similar focus on the effects of time and space, structuration does not recognise movement, change and transition. Unlike
functionalism, in which structures and their virtual synonyms, "systems", comprise organisations, structuration sees structures and systems as separate concepts. Unlike
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
, structuration avoids an overly restrictive concept of "society" and Marxism's reliance on a universal "motor of history" (i.e.
class conflict
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
), its theories of societal "adaptation", and its insistence on the working class as universal class and socialism as the ultimate form of modern society. Finally, "structuration theory cannot be expected to furnish the moral guarantees that
critical theorists
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from socia ...
sometimes purport to offer."
Main ideas
Duality of structure
Giddens observed that in social analysis, the term ''structure'' referred generally to "rules and resources" and more specifically to "the structuring properties allowing the 'binding' of time-space in social systems". These properties make it possible for similar social practices to exist across time and space and that lend them "systemic" form.
Agents—groups or individuals—draw upon these structures to perform social actions through embedded memory, called ''memory traces''. Memory traces are thus the vehicle through which social actions are carried out. Structure is also, however, the result of these social practices. Thus, Giddens conceives of the ''duality of structure'' as being:
Giddens uses "the duality of structure" (i.e. material/ideational, micro/macro) to emphasize structure's nature as both medium and outcome. Structures exist both internally within agents as memory traces that are the product of phenomenological and hermeneutic inheritance
and externally as the manifestation of social actions. Similarly, social structures contain agents and/or are the product of past actions of agents. Giddens holds this duality, alongside "structure" and "system," in addition to the concept of recursiveness, as the core of structuration theory.
His theory has been adopted by those with
structuralist inclinations, but who wish to situate such structures in human practice rather than to
reify them as an
ideal type
Ideal type (german: Idealtypus), also known as pure type, is a typological term most closely associated with sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). For Weber, the conduct of social science depends upon the construction of abstract, hypothetical co ...
or material property. (This is different, for example, from
actor–network theory
Actor–network theory (ANT) is a theoretical and methodological approach to social theory where everything in the social and natural worlds exists in constantly shifting networks of relationships. It posits that nothing exists outside those relat ...
which appears to grant a certain autonomy to technical artifacts.)
Social systems have patterns of social relation that change over time; the changing nature of space and time determines the interaction of social relations and therefore structure. Hitherto, social structures or models were either taken to be beyond the realm of human control—the
positivistic
Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...
approach—or posit that action creates them—the
interpretivist approach. The duality of structure emphasizes that they are different sides to the same central question of how social order is created.
Gregor McLennan suggested renaming this process "the duality of structure ", since both aspects are involved in using and producing social actions.
[McLennan, G. (1997/2000/2001). Critical or positive theory? A comment on the status of Anthony Giddens' social theory. In C.G.A. Bryant & D. Jary (Eds.), ''Anthony Giddens: Critical assessments'' (pp. 318-327). New York, NY: Routledge.]
Cycle of structuration
The duality of structure is essentially a
feedback
Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled ...
–
feedforward process whereby agents and structures mutually enact social systems, and social systems in turn become part of that duality. Structuration thus recognizes a social cycle. In examining social systems, structuration theory examines ''structure'', ''
modality
Modality may refer to:
Humanities
* Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations
* Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales
* Modalitie ...
'', and ''interaction''. The "modality" (discussed below) of a structural system is the means by which structures are translated into actions.
Interaction
Interaction is the agent's activity within the social system, space and time. "It can be understood as the fitful yet routinized occurrence of encounters, fading away in time and space, yet constantly reconstituted within different areas of time-space."
Rule
Rule or ruling may refer to:
Education
* Royal University of Law and Economics (RULE), a university in Cambodia
Human activity
* The exercise of political or personal control by someone with authority or power
* Business rule, a rule perta ...
s can affect interaction, as originally suggested by
Goffman
Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century". In 2007 ''The Times Higher Educ ...
. "Frames" are "clusters of rules which help to constitute and regulate activities, defining them as activities of a certain sort and as subject to a given range of sanctions."
Frames are necessary for agents to feel "ontological security, the trust that everyday actions have some degree of predictability. Whenever individuals interact in a specific context they address—without any difficulty and in many cases without conscious acknowledgement—the question: "What is going on here?" Framing is the practice by which agents make sense of what they are doing.
Routinization
Structuration theory is centrally concerned with ''order'' as "the transcending of time and space in human social relationships".
''
Institutionalized action'' and ''routinization'' are foundational in the establishment of social order and the reproduction of social systems. Routine persists in society, even during social and political revolutions, where daily life is greatly deformed, "as Bettelheim demonstrates so well, routines, including those of an obnoxious sort, are re-established."
Routine interactions become institutionalized features of social systems via tradition, custom and/or habit, but this is no easy societal task and it "is a major error to suppose that these phenomena need no explanation. On the contrary, as
Goffman
Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century". In 2007 ''The Times Higher Educ ...
(together with
ethnomethodology
Ethnomethodology is the study of how social order is produced in and through processes of social interaction.Garfinkel, H. (1974) 'The origins of the term ethnomethodology', in R.Turner (Ed.) Ethnomethodology, Penguin, Harmondsworth, pp 15–18. I ...
) has helped to demonstrate, the routinized character of most social activity is something that has to be 'worked at' continually by those who sustain it in their day-to-day conduct."
Therefore, routinized social practices do not stem from coincidence, "but the skilled accomplishments of knowledgeable agents."
''Trust'' and ''tact'' are essential for the existence of a "basic security system, the sustaining (in ''praxis'') of a sense of ontological security, and
hus
Hus or HUS may refer to:
Medicine
* Hemolytic-uremic syndrome, a disease characterized by haemolytic anemia, kidney problems and a low platelet count
People
* Hus (surname)
* Hus family, an 18th-century French dynasty of ballet dancers and ac ...
the routine nature of social reproduction which agents skilfully organize. The monitoring of the body, the control and use of face in '
face work'—these are fundamental to social integration in time and space."
Explanation
Thus, even the smallest social actions contribute to the alteration or reproduction of social systems. Social stability and order is not permanent; agents always possess a ''
dialectic
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
of control'' (discussed below) which allows them to break away from normative actions. Depending on the social factors present, agents may cause shifts in social structure.
The cycle of structuration is not a defined sequence; it is rarely a direct succession of causal events. Structures and agents are both internal and external to each other, mingling, interrupting, and continually changing each other as feedbacks and feedforwards occur. Giddens stated, "The degree of "
systemness" is very variable. ...I take it to be one of the main features of structuration theory that the extension and 'closure' of societies across space and time is regarded as problematic."
The use of "patriot" in political speech reflects this mingling, borrowing from and contributing to nationalistic norms and supports structures such as a
police state
A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exe ...
, from which it in turn gains impact.
Structure and society
Structures are the "rules and resources" embedded in agents' memory traces. Agents call upon their memory traces of which they are "knowledgeable" to perform social actions. "Knowledgeability" refers to "what agents know about what they do, and why they do it."
Giddens divides memory traces (''structures-within-knowledgeability''
) into three types:
* Domination (power): Giddens also uses "resources" to refer to this type. "Authoritative resources" allow agents to control persons, whereas "allocative resources" allow agents to control material objects.
* Signification (meaning): Giddens suggests that meaning is inferred through structures. Agents use existing experience to infer meaning. For example, the meaning of living with mental illness comes from contextualized experiences.
*
Legitimation
Legitimation or legitimisation is the act of providing legitimacy. Legitimation in the social sciences refers to the process whereby an act, process, or ideology becomes legitimate by its attachment to norms and values within a given society. It ...
(norms): Giddens sometimes uses "rules" to refer to either signification or legitimation. An agent draws upon these ''stocks of knowledge'' via memory to inform him or herself about the external context, conditions, and potential results of an action.
When an agent uses these structures for social interactions, they are called ''modalities'' and present themselves in the forms of facility (domination), interpretive scheme/communication (signification) and norms/sanctions (legitimation).
Thus, he distinguishes between overall "structures-within-knowledgeability" and the more limited and task-specific "modalities" on which these agents subsequently draw when they interact.
The duality of structures means that structures enter "simultaneously into the constitution of the agent and social practices, and 'exists' in the generating moments of this constitution."
"Structures exist paradigmatically, as an absent set of differences, temporally "present" only in their instantiation, in the constituting moments of social systems."
Giddens draws upon
structuralism
In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader ...
and
post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critique ...
in theorizing that structures and their meaning are understood by their differences.
Agents and society
Giddens' agents follow previous
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
work done by
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
and others.
Agency, as Giddens calls it, is human action. To be human is to be an agent (not all agents are human). Agency is critical to both the reproduction and the transformation of society. Another way to explain this concept is by what Giddens calls the "reflexive monitoring of actions."
[Giddens, A. (1991). ''Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age.'' Cambridge: Polity Press.] "Reflexive monitoring" refers to agents' ability to monitor their actions and those actions' settings and contexts. Monitoring is an essential characteristic of agency. Agents subsequently "rationalize," or evaluate, the success of those efforts. All humans engage in this process, and expect the same from others. Through action, agents produce structures; through reflexive monitoring and rationalization, they transform them. To act, agents must be motivated, must be knowledgeable must be able to rationalize the action; and must reflexively monitor the action.
Agents, while bounded in structure, draw upon their knowledge of that structural context when they act. However, actions are constrained by agents' inherent capabilities and their understandings of available actions and external limitations. ''Practical consciousness'' and ''discursive consciousness'' inform these abilities. Practical consciousness is the knowledgeability that an agent brings to the tasks required by everyday life, which is so integrated as to be hardly noticed. Reflexive monitoring occurs at the level of practical consciousness.
[Ilmonen, K. (2001). Sociology, consumption, and routine. In J. Gronow & A. Warde (Eds.), ''Ordinary Consumption'' (pp. 9-25). New York, NY: Routledge.] Discursive consciousness is the ability to verbally express knowledge. Alongside practical and discursive consciousness, Giddens recognizes actors as having reflexive, contextual knowledge, and that habitual, widespread use of knowledgeability makes structures become institutionalized.
Agents rationalize, and in doing so, link the agent and the agent's knowledgeability. Agents must coordinate ongoing projects, goals, and contexts while performing actions. This coordination is called reflexive monitoring and is connected to ethnomethodology's emphasis on agents' intrinsic sense of accountability.
The factors that can enable or constrain an agent, as well as how an agent uses structures, are known as ''capability constraints'' include age, cognitive/physical limits on performing multiple tasks at once and the physical impossibility of being in multiple places at once, available time and the relationship between movement in space and movement in time.
Location offers are a particular type of capability constraint. Examples include:
* Locale
*
Regionalization
Regionalisation is the tendency to form decentralised regions.
Regionalisation or land classification can be observed in various disciplines:
*In agriculture, see Agricultural Land Classification.
*In biogeography, see Biogeography#Biogeographi ...
: political or geographical zones, or rooms in a building
* Presence: Do other actors participate in the action? (see
co-presence); and more specifically
* Physical presence: Are other actors physically nearby?
Agents are always able to engage in a ''dialectic of control'', able to "intervene in the world or to refrain from such intervention, with the effect of influencing a specific process or state of affairs."
In essence, agents experience inherent and contrasting amounts of autonomy and dependence; agents can always either act or not.
Methodology
Structuration theory is relevant to research, but does not prescribe a methodology and its use in research has been problematic. Giddens intended his theory to be abstract and theoretical, informing the hermeneutic aspects of research rather than guiding practice. Giddens wrote that structuration theory "establishes the internal logical coherence of concepts within a theoretical network."
Giddens criticized many researchers who used structuration theory for empirical research, critiquing their "en bloc" use of the theory's abstract concepts in a burdensome way. "The works applying concepts from the logical framework of structuration theory that Giddens approved of were those that used them more selectively, 'in a spare and critical fashion.'"
Giddens and followers used structuration theory more as "a sensitizing device".
[Turner, J.H. (1986). Review essay: The theory of structuration. ''American Journal of Sociology'', ''91''(4), 969-977.]
Structuration theory allows researchers to focus on any structure or concept individually or in combination. In this way, structuration theory prioritizes
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
over
epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
. In his own work, Giddens focuses on production and reproduction of social practices in some context. He looked for stasis and change,
agent expectations, relative degrees of routine,
tradition
A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...
, behavior, and creative, skillful, and strategic thought simultaneously. He examined spatial organization,
intended and unintended consequences, skilled and knowledgeable agents,
discursive
Discursive is an adjective from the word discourse and may refer specifically to:
* Discursive complex, a methodological device in psychoanalysis
* Discursive democracy, any system of political decisions based on some tradeoff of consensus decisi ...
and
tacit knowledge
Tacit knowledge or implicit knowledge—as opposed to formal, codified or explicit knowledge—is knowledge that is difficult to express or extract, and thus more difficult to transfer to others by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. This ...
, dialectic of control, actions with motivational content, and constraints.
Structuration theorists conduct analytical research of social relations, rather than organically discovering them, since they use structuration theory to reveal specific research questions, though that technique has been criticized as
cherry-picking
Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data th ...
.
Giddens preferred ''strategic conduct analysis'', which focuses on contextually situated actions. It employs detailed accounts of agents' knowledgeability, motivation, and the dialectic of control.
Criticisms and additions
Though structuration theory has received critical expansion since its origination, Giddens' concepts remained pivotal for later extension of the theory, especially the duality of structure.
Strong structuration
Rob Stones argued that many aspects of Gidden's original theory had little place in its modern manifestation. Stones focused on clarifying its scope, reconfiguring some concepts and inserting new ones, and refining methodology and research orientations. Strong structuration:
#Places its ontology more ''
in situ
''In situ'' (; often not italicized in English) is a Latin phrase that translates literally to "on site" or "in position." It can mean "locally", "on site", "on the premises", or "in place" to describe where an event takes place and is used in ...
'' than abstractly.
#Introduces the ''quadripartite cycle'', which details the elements in the duality of structure. These are:
#* ''external structures'' as conditions of action;
#* ''internal structures'' within the agent;
#* ''active agency'', "including a range of aspects involved when agents draw upon internal structures in producing practical action";
and
#* ''outcomes'' (as both structures and events).
#Increases attention to epistemology and methodology. Ontology supports epistemology and methodology by prioritising:
#* the question-at-hand;
#* appropriate forms of methodological bracketing;
#* distinct
methodological
In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
steps in research; and
#* "
e specific combinations of all the above in composite forms of research."
#Discovers the "meso-level of ontology between the abstract, philosophical level of ontology and the ''in-situ'',
ontic
In ontology, ontic (from the Greek , genitive : "of that which is") is physical, real, or factual existence.
In more nuance, it means that which concerns particular, individuated beings rather than their modes of being; the present, actual thing i ...
level."
Strong structuration allows varied abstract ontological concepts in experiential conditions.
#Focuses on the meso-level at the temporal and spatial scale.
#Conceptualises ''independent causal forces'' and ''irresistible causal forces'', which take into account how external structures, internal structures, and active agency affect agent choices (or lack of them). "Irresistible forces" are the connected concepts of a horizon of action with a set of "actions-in-hand" and a hierarchical ordering of purposes and concerns. An agent is affected by external influences. This aspect of strong structuration helps reconcile an agent's dialectic of control and his/her more constrained set of "real choices."
Post-structuration and dualism
Margaret Archer
Margaret Scotford Archer (born 20 January 1943) is an English sociologist, who spent most of her academic career at the University of Warwick where she was for many years Professor of Sociology. She was also a professor at l'Ecole Polytechniq ...
objected to the inseparability of
structure and agency
In the social sciences there is a standing debate over the primacy of structure or agency in shaping human behaviour. ''Structure'' is the recurrent patterned arrangements which influence or limit the choices and opportunities available. '' Agency ...
in structuration theory.
[Archer, M. (1995). ''Realist social theory: The morphogenetic approach.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.] She proposed a notion of ''dualism'' rather than "duality of structure". She primarily examined structural frameworks and the action within the limits allowed by those conditions. She combined realist ontology and called her methodology ''analytical dualism''. Archer maintained that structure precedes agency in social structure reproduction and analytical importance, and that they should be analysed separately. She emphasised the importance of temporality in social analysis, dividing it into four stages: structural conditioning, social interaction, its immediate outcome and structural elaboration. Thus her analysis considered embedded "structural conditions, emergent causal powers and properties, social interactions between agents, and subsequent structural changes or reproductions arising from the latter."
Archer criticised structuration theory for denying time and place because of the inseparability between structure and agency.
Nicos Mouzelis reconstructed Giddens' original theories.
[Healy, K. (1998). "Conceptualising constraint: Mouzelis, Archer, and the concept of social structure." ''Sociology, 613''(4), pp.613-635.] Mouzelis kept Giddens' original formulation of structure as "rules and resources." However, he was considered a dualist, because he argued for dualism to be as important in social analysis as the duality of structure.
[Mouzelis, N. (1989). "Restructuring structuration theory." ''The Sociological Review, 32''(3), pp.509-522.] Mouzelis reexamined human social action at the "
syntagmatic
In linguistics, a syntagma is an elementary constituent segment within a text. Such a segment can be a phoneme, a word, a grammatical phrase, a sentence, or an event within a larger narrative structure, depending on the level of analysis. Syntagma ...
" (syntactic) level. He claimed that the duality of structure does not account for all types of social relationships. Duality of structure works when agents do not question or disrupt rules, and interaction resembles "natural/performative" actions with a practical orientation. However, in other contexts, the relationship between structure and agency can resemble dualism more than duality, such as systems that are the result of powerful agents. In these situations, rules are not viewed as resources, but are in states of transition or redefinition, where actions are seen from a "strategic/monitoring orientation."
In this orientation, dualism shows the distance between agents and structures. He called these situations "syntagmatic duality". For example, a professor can change the class he or she teaches, but has little capability to change the larger university structure. "In that case, syntagmatic duality gives way to syntagmatic dualism."
[Mouzelis, N. (1991). ''Back to sociological theory: The construction of social orders.'' New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.] This implies that systems are the outcome, but not the medium, of social actions. Mouzelis also criticised Giddens' lack of consideration for social hierarchies.
John Parker built on Archer and Mouzelis's support for dualism to propose a theoretical reclamation of historical sociology and macro-structures using concrete historical cases, claiming that dualism better explained the dynamics of social structures.
[Parker, J. (2000). ''Structuration'' Buckingham: Open University Press.] Equally, Robert Archer developed and applied analytical dualism in his critical analysis of the impact of New Managerialism on education policy in England and Wales during the 1990s and organization theory.
John B. Thompson
Though he agreed with the soundness and overall purposes of Giddens' most expansive structuration concepts (i.e., against dualism and for the study of structure in concert with agency), John B. Thompson ("a close friend and colleague of Giddens at Cambridge University")
wrote one of the most widely cited critiques of structuration theory.
[Thompson, J.B. (1984). ''Studies in the theory of ideology''. Cambridge: Polity Press.] His central argument was that it needed to be more specific and more consistent both internally and with conventional social structure theory. Thompson focused on problematic aspects of Giddens' concept of structure as "rules and resources," focusing on "rules". He argued that Giddens' concept of rule was too broad.
Thompson claimed that Giddens presupposed a ''criterion of importance'' in contending that rules are a generalizable enough tool to apply to every aspect of human action and interaction; "on the other hand, Giddens is well aware that rules, or some kinds or aspects of rules, are much more important than others for the analysis of, for example, the social structure of capitalist societies."
He found the term to be imprecise and to not designate which rules are more relevant for which social structures.
Thompson used the example of
linguistic analysis
In the study of language, description or descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used (or how it was used in the past) by a speech community. François & Ponsonnet (2013).
All acad ...
to point out that the need for a prior framework which to enable analysis of, for example, the social structure of an entire nation. While
semantic rules may be relevant to social structure, to study them "presupposes some structural points of reference which are not themselves , with regard to which
fthese semantic rules are differentiated"
according to class, sex, region and so on. He called this ''structural differentiation.''
Rules differently affect variously situated individuals. Thompson gave the example of a private school which restricts enrollment and thus participation. Thus rules—in this case, restrictions—"operate , affecting unevenly various groups of individuals whose categorization depends on certain assumptions about social structures."
The isolated analysis of rules does not incorporate differences among agents.
Thompson claimed that Giddens offered no way of formulating ''structural identity''. Some "rules" are better conceived of as broad inherent elements that define a structure's identity (e.g.,
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...
and
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...
are "capitalistic"). These agents may differ, but have important traits in common due to their "capitalistic" identity. Thompson theorized that these traits were not rules in the sense that a manager could draw upon a "rule" to fire a tardy employee; rather, they were which " the kinds of rules which are possible and which thereby the scope for institutional variation."
It is necessary to outline the broader social system to be able to analyze agents, actors, and rules within that system.
Thus Thompson concluded that Giddens' use of the term "rules" is problematic. "Structure" is similarly objectionable: "But to adhere to this conception of structure, while at the same time acknowledging the need for the study of 'structural principles,' 'structural sets' and 'axes of structuration,' is simply a recipe for conceptual confusion."
Thompson proposed several amendments. He requested sharper differentiation between the reproduction of institutions and the reproduction of social structure. He proposed an altered version of the structuration cycle. He defined "
institutions
Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
" as "characterized by rules, regulations and conventions of various sorts, by differing kinds and quantities of resources and by hierarchical power relations between the occupants of institutional positions."
Agents acting within institutions and conforming to institutional rules and regulations or using institutionally endowed power reproduce the institution. "If, in so doing, the institutions continue to satisfy certain structural conditions, both in the sense of conditions which delimit the scope for ''institutional variation'' and the conditions which underlie the operation of ''structural differentiation'', then the agents may be said to reproduce social structure."
Thompson also proposed adding a ''range of alternatives'' to Giddens' conception of constraints on human action. He pointed out the paradoxical relationship between Giddens' "dialectic of control" and his acknowledgement that constraints may leave an agent with no choice. He demanded that Giddens better show how wants and desires relate to choice.
Giddens replied that a structural principle is not equivalent with rules, and pointed to his definition from ''A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism'': "Structural principles are principles of organisation implicated in those practices most "deeply" (in time) and "pervasively" (in space) sedimented in society",
[Giddens, A. (1981). ''A contemporary critique of historical materialism: vol 1: Power, property, and the state.'' London: Macmillan.] and described structuration as a "mode of institutional articulation"
[Giddens, A. (1989). A reply to my critics. In D. Held & J. B. Thompson (Eds.), ''Social theory of modern societies: Anthony Giddens and his critics'' (pp.249-301). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.] with emphasis on the relationship between time and space and a host of institutional orderings including, but not limited to, rules.
Ultimately, Thompson concluded that the concept of structure as "rules and resources" in an elemental and ontological way resulted in conceptual confusion. Many theorists supported Thompson's argument that an analysis "based on structuration's ontology of structures as norms, interpretative schemes and power resources radically limits itself if it does not frame and locate itself within a more broadly conceived notion of social structures."
Change
Sewell provided a useful summary that included one of the theory's less specified aspects: the question "Why are structural transformations possible?" He claimed that Giddens' overrelied on rules and modified Giddens' argument by re-defining "resources" as the embodiment of cultural
schemas. He argued that change arises from the multiplicity of structures, the ''transposable'' nature of schemas, the unpredictability of resource accumulation, the
polysemy
Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word has a singl ...
of resources and the intersection of structures.
The existence of multiple structures implies that the knowledgeable agents whose actions produce systems are capable of applying different schemas to contexts with differing resources, contrary to the conception of a universal
habitus (learned dispositions, skills and ways of acting). He wrote that "Societies are based on practices that derived from many distinct structures, which exist at different levels, operate in different modalities, and are themselves based on widely varying types and quantities of resources. ...It is never true that all of them are homologous."
[Sewell, Jr., W. H. (1992). A theory of structure: duality, agency, and transformation. ''The American Journal of Sociology, 98''(1):1-29.]
Originally from
Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence i ...
, ''transposable'' schemas can be "applied to a wide and not fully predictable range of cases outside the context in which they were initially learned." That capacity "is inherent in the knowledge of cultural schemas that characterizes all minimally competent members of society."
Agents may modify schemas even though their use does not predictably accumulate resources. For example, the effect of a joke is never quite certain, but a comedian may alter it based on the amount of laughter it garners regardless of this variability.
Agents may interpret a particular resource according to different schemas. E.g., a commander could attribute his wealth to military prowess, while others could see it as a blessing from the gods or a coincidental initial advantage.
Structures often overlap, confusing interpretation (e.g., the structure of capitalist society includes production from both private property and worker
solidarity
''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...
).
Technology
This theory was adapted and augmented by researchers interested in the relationship between
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
and social structures, such as
information technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...
in organizations.
DeSanctis and
Poole
Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counc ...
proposed an "adaptive structuration theory" with respect to the emergence and use of group decision support systems. In particular, they chose Giddens' notion of modalities to consider how technology is used with respect to its "spirit". "
Appropriations" are the immediate, visible actions that reveal deeper structuration processes and are enacted with "moves". Appropriations may be faithful or unfaithful, be instrumental and be used with various attitudes.
[Desanctis, G. & Poole, M. S. (1994). Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: adaptive structuration theory. ''Organization Science, 5''(2):121-147.]
Wanda Orlikowski
Wanda J. Orlikowski is a US-based organizational theorist and Information Systems researcher, and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Information Technologies and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of ...
applied the duality of structure to technology: "The duality of technology identifies prior views of technology as either objective force or as socially constructed product–as a false dichotomy."
[Orlikowski, W. J. (1992). The duality of technology: rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. ''Organization Science, 3''(3):398-427. Earlier version at the URI http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/2300] She compared this to previous models (the technological imperative, strategic choice, and technology as a trigger) and considered the importance of meaning, power, norms, and interpretive flexibility. Orlikowski later replaced the notion of embedded properties
for enactment (use). The "practice lens" shows how people enact structures which shape their use of technology that they employ in their practices.
[Orlikowski, W. J. (2000). Using technology and constituting structures: a practice lens for studying technology in organizations. ''Organization Science, 11''(4):404-428.] While Orlikowski's work focused on corporations, it is equally applicable to the technology cultures that have emerged in smaller community-based organizations, and can be adapted through the ''gender sensitivity lens'' in approaches to technology governance.
[Stillman, L. (2006). (Ph.D Thesis). Understandings of Technology in Community-Based Organisations: A Structurational Analysis. Monash University, Australia. Retrieved from: http://webstylus.net/?q=node/182.]
Workman, Ford and Allen rearticulated structuration theory as ''structuration agency theory'' for modeling socio-biologically inspired structuration in
security software
Computer security software or cybersecurity software is any computer program designed to influence information security. This is often taken in the context of defending computer systems or data, yet can incorporate programs designed specifically ...
.
[Workman, M., Ford, R., & Allen, W. (2008). A structuration agency approach to security policy enforcement in mobile ad hoc networks. ''Information Security Journal, 17'', 267-277.] Software agents join humans to engage in social actions of information exchange, giving and receiving instructions, responding to other agents, and pursuing goals individually or jointly.
Four-flows-model
The four flows model of organizing is grounded in structuration theory. McPhee and Pamela Zaug (2001) identify four communication flows that collectively perform key organizational functions and distinguish organizations from less formal social groups:
* Membership negotiation—socialization, but also identification and self-positioning;
* Organizational self-structuring—reflexive, especially managerial, structuring and control activities;
* Activity coordination—Interacting to align or adjust local work activities;
* Institutional positioning in the social order of institutions—mostly external communication to gain recognition and inclusion in the web of social transactions.
Group communication
Poole, Seibold, and McPhee wrote that "group structuration theory,"
[Waldeck, J.H., Shepard, C.A., Teitelbaum, J., Farrar, W.J., & Seibold, D.R. (2002). New directions for functional, symbolic convergence, structuration, and bona fide group perspectives of group communication. In L.R. Frey (Ed.), ''New directions in group communication'' (pp.3-25). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.] provides "a theory of group interaction commensurate with the complexities of the phenomenon."
[Poole, M.S., Seibold, D.R., & McPhee, R.D. (1996). The structuration of group decisions. In R.Y. Hirokawa & M.S. Poole (Eds.), ''Communication and group decision making'' (pp.114-146). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.]
The theory attempts to integrate macrosocial theories and individuals or small groups, as well as how to avoid the binary categorization of either "stable" or "
emergent" groups.
Waldeck et al. concluded that the theory needs to better predict outcomes, rather than merely explaining them. ''Decision rules'' support decision-making, which produces a communication pattern that can be directly observable. Research has not yet examined the "rational" function of group communication and decision-making (i.e., how well it achieves goals), nor structural production or constraints. Researchers must empirically demonstrate the recursivity of action and structure, examine how structures stabilize and change over time due to group communication, and may want to integrate argumentation research.
Public relations
Falkheimer claimed that integrating structuration theory into
public relations
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...
(PR) strategies could result in a less agency-driven business, return theoretical focus to the role of power structures in PR, and reject massive PR campaigns in favor of a more "holistic understanding of how PR may be used in local contexts both as a reproductive and
ransformationalsocial instrument."
[Falkheimer, J. (2009). On Giddens: Interpreting public relations through Anthony Giddens' structuration and late modernity theory. In O. Ihlen, B. van Ruler, & M. Frederiksson (Eds.), ''Public relations and social theory: Key figures and concepts'' (pp.103-119). New York, NY: Routledge.] Falkheimer portrayed PR as a method of communication and action whereby social systems emerge and reproduce. Structuration theory reinvigorates the study of space and time in PR theory. Applied structuration theory may emphasize community-based approaches, storytelling, rituals, and informal communication systems. Moreover, structuration theory integrates all organizational members in PR actions, integrating PR into all organizational levels rather than a separate office. Finally, structuration reveals interesting ethical considerations relating to whether a social system transform.
COVID-19 and structure
the
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
pandemic had huge impact on society since the beginning. When investigating those impacts, many researchers found helpful using structuration theory to explain the change in society. Oliver (2021) used “a theoretical framework derived from Giddens’ structuration theory to analyze societal information cultures, concentrating on information and health literacy perspectives.” And this framework focused on “the three modalities of structuration, i.e., interpretive schemes, resources, and norms.” And in Oliver’s research, those three modalities are “resources”, “information freedom” and “formal and informal concepts and rules of behavior”. After analyzing four countries framework, Oliver and his research team concluded “All our case studies show a number of competing information sources – from traditional media and official websites to various social media platforms used by both the government and the general public – that complicate the information landscape in which we all try to navigate what we know, and what we do not yet know, about the pandemic.”
In the research of interpreting how remote work environment change during COVID-19 in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
, Walter (2020) applied structuration theory because “it addresses the relationship between actors (or persons) and social structures and how these social structures ultimately realign and conform to the actions of actors” Plus, “these social structures from Giddens's structuration theory assist people to navigate through everyday life.”
Zvokuomba (2021) also used Giddens' theory of structuration “to reflect at the various levels of fragilities within the context of COVID-19
lockdown
A lockdown is a restriction policy for people, community or a country to stay where they are, usually due to specific risks (such as COVID-19) that could possibly harm the people if they move and interact freely.
The term is used for a prison ...
measures.” One example in the research is that “theory of structuration and agency point to situations when individuals and groups of people either in compliance or defiance of community norms and rules of survival adopt certain practices.” And during pandemic, researched pointed out “reverting to the traditional midwifery became a pragmatic approach to a problem.” One example to support this point is that “As medical centers were partly closed, with no basic medication and health staff, the only alternative was seek traditional medical services. ”
Business and structure
Structuration theory can also be used in explaining business related issues including operating, managing and marketing.
Clifton Scott and Karen Myers (2010)studied how the duality of structure can explain the shifts of members' actions during the membership negotiations in an organization by This is an example of how structure evolves with the interaction of a group of people.
Another case study done by Dutta (2016) and his research team shows how the models shift because of the action of individuals. The article examines the relationship between
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
’s behavior and a company’s cross-border
acquisition. This case can also demonstrate one of the major dimensions in the duality of structure, the sense of power from the CEO. Authors found out that the process follows the theory of duality of structure: under the circumstances of CEO is
overconfident, and the company is the limitation of resources, the process of cross-border acquisition is likely to be different than before.
Yuan ElaineJ (2011
)’s research focused on a certain demographic of people under the structure. Authors studied Chinese TV shows and audiences’ flavor of the show. The author concludes in the relationship between the audience and the TV shows producers, audiences’ behavior has higher-order patterns.
Pavlou and Majchrzak argued that research on business-to-business
e-commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...
portrayed technology as overly
deterministic
Determinism is a philosophical view, where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and consi ...
. The authors employed structuration theory to re-examine outcomes such as economic/business success as well as trust, coordination, innovation, and shared knowledge. They looked beyond technology into organizational structure and practices, and examined the effects on the structure of adapting to new technologies. The authors held that technology needs to be aligned and compatible with the existing "trustworthy"
[Pavlou, P.A>, & Majchrzak, A. (2002). Structuration theory: Capturing the complexity of business-to-business intermediaries. In M. Warkentin (Ed.), ''Business to business electronic commerce: Challenges & solutions'' (pp.175-189). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.] practices and organizational and market structure. The authors recommended measuring long-term adaptations using ethnography, monitoring and other methods to observe causal relationships and generate better predictions.
See also
*
Action theory (sociology)
In sociology, action theory is the theory of social action presented by the American theorist Talcott Parsons.
Parsons established action theory to integrate the study of social action and social order with the aspects of macro and micro factors. ...
*
Archaeology of religion and ritual The archaeology of religion and ritual is a growing field of study within archaeology that applies ideas from religious studies, theory and methods, anthropological theory, and archaeological and historical methods and theories to the study of rel ...
*
''A Community of Witches'' § Wicca as a religion of late modernity
*
Comparative contextual analysis Comparative contextual analysis is a methodology for comparative research where contextual interrogation precedes any analysis of similarity and difference. It is a thematic process directed and designed to explore relationships of agency rather tha ...
*
Constitutive criminology
*
Grand theory
Grand may refer to:
People with the name
* Grand (surname)
* Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor
* Grand Mixer DXT, American turntablist
* Grand Puba (born 1966), American rapper
Places
* Grand, Oklahoma
* Grand, Vosges, village and commun ...
*
Health geography
Health geography is the application of geographical information, perspectives, and methods to the study of health, disease, and health care. Medical geography, a sub-discipline of or sister field of health geography, Oxford Bibliographies entry of ...
*
Macrosociology
Macrosociology is a large-scale approach to sociology, emphasizing the analysis of social systems and populations at the structural level, often at a necessarily high level of theoretical abstraction. Though macrosociology ''does'' concern itself ...
*
Social change
Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations.
Definition
Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or sociocult ...
*
Sociology of space
The sociology of space is a sub-discipline of sociology that mostly borrows from theories developed within the discipline of geography, including the sub fields of human geography, economic geography, and feminist geography. The "sociology" of ...
*
Text and conversation theory Text and conversation is a theory in the field of organizational communication illustrating how communication makes up an organization. In the theory's simplest explanation, an organization is created and defined by communication. Communication "is" ...
References
External links
Anthony GiddensThe constitution of society: An outline of the theory of structuration''. Giddens' most comprehensive work on structuration theory. Available in part for free online via
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
This bookis intended to provide an accessible introduction to Giddens' work and also to situate structuration theory in the context of other approaches. Available in part for free online via
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
.
A critical assessmentof Giddens' entire body of work. Available in part for free online via
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
.
Social theory for beginners.Available in part for free online via
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
.
Anthony Giddens: The theory of structuration - Theory.org.uk
* detailing the structure of structuration theory as contrasted with
Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in sociol ...
's
action theory.
{{Positivism
Sociological theories
Critical theory
Social change
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