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Agency and structure sociology essay
Agency and structure sociology essay
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The development of individual identity has long been scrutinized by scientists of all disciplines to determine the biological and cultural aspects of life which influence the creation of identity. The structure and agency debate within the social sciences was born from opinions considering the postmodernist social changes throughout history; and aims to determine the influential significance held by the structural institutions within a culture, compared to that which is obtained from social interactions and personal agency. Social structures within society range from the larger global structures; to the macrostructures or institutional organisations that govern certain aspects of the way we live, such as political, economic, and education systems; to the smaller microstructures of face-to-face interactions and behavioural patterns accepted within a society, such as etiquette and social norms (Furze et al 2012, p.5,6). Human identities are undeniably shaped by the social structures that govern the culture from which they belong. This essay aims to discuss the influences of structure and agency respectively, as well as the altering frameworks predetermined by social scientists during different historical periods, in an effort to assess the levels of influence that social structures and social interaction possess over establishing an identity in a cultural world. In the earlier half of the twentieth century, the period deemed as the era of modernity; individuals, for the greater part, respected authority and naturally conformed to the core values within their society (Furze et al. 2012, p. 66). This characteristic of Western societies encouraged academics in the field of sociology like Karl Marx, to establish the framework of earlie... ... middle of paper ... ...eu, P 1989, ‘Space and symbolic power’, Sociological theory, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 14-25, viewed 28 June 2014, . Chouinard, V 1997, ‘Structure and agency: contested concepts in human geography’, The Canadian Geographer, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 363-377. Furze, B, Savy, P, Brym, RJ & Lie, J 2012, Sociology in today’s world, 2nd edn, Cengage Learning, South Melbourne. Hovarth, P 1998, ‘Agency and social adaptation’, Applied Behavioural Science Review, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 137-154. King, A 2009, ‘Overcoming structure and agency: Talcott Parsons, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the theory of social action’, Journal of classical psychology, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 260-288. Plummer, K 2010, Sociology the basics, Routledge, Oxon. Ritzer, G (ed) 2012, The wiley-blackwell companion to sociology, John Wiley & Sons, West Sussex.
Myers, David G. “Chapter 14: Social Psychology.” Psychology. 10th ed. New York, NY US: Worth
Murray, J.L, R. Linden, and D. Kendall (2014). Sociology In Our Times. Custom Canadian Edition.
The idea of a “social structure” is probably one of the most popular and influential concepts in the world of sociology, with social theorists from Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Parsons, all base their work off the fundamental idea that there is a large societal structure which pl...
Curtis, J. E., Tepperman, L., & Albanese, P. (2012). Sociology: A Canadian perspective(3rd ed.). Don Mills, Ont: Oxford University Press.
Henri Lefebvre was a French social theorist and philosopher who had been appropriated into the world of urban studies by a generation of geographers, architects and urban planners. The Production of Space is often cited as Lefebvre’s best-known work despite the English translation not being issued until 1991, 17 years after its first publication in French (1974). In France, Lefebvre is known as a “Marxist philosopher cum rural-urban sociologist” who “brought an accessible Marx to a whole generation of French scholars” (Merrifield 2006: xxxvii). During Lefebvre’s career he penned 67 books; however, to this day the majority have not been translated into English, which explains why The Production of Space is his most influent work in English speaking countries. The book itself takes in a vast array of disciplines and is informed by the “project of a different society, a different mode of production, where social practice would be governed by differe...
Van Krieken, R Smith, P Habibis, D McDonald, K Haralambos, M Holborn, M (2000) Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, 2nd edn, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest.
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Murray, Jane Lothian, Linden, Rick and Kendall, Diane. (2011). SOCIOLOGY IN OUR TIMES, Fifth Canadian Edition by Nelson Education Limited, Published by Thomson Wadsworth, USA.
Schaefer, R.T. (2009). Sociology: a brief introduction, 8th edition. New York, New York, USA: McGraw-Hill.
The determinist view that our behaviour is the result of some previous experience suggests that we have no free will to control our actions. As a result humanistic social psychologists have wholly rejected this idea and instead clearly supported the idea of autonomy. Autonomy basically means that we are free to choose what we do and that our behaviour is not constrained in any way. Carl Rogers (Wetherell, Still 1996:101) and Abraham Maslow (Stevens1 1996:152) enthusiastically believed that people implement choice in their behaviour and that the idea that we are not in control of our behaviour deprives us of our human characteristics. Rogers sees our personal world as being unique and believes it is sustained and improved by exercising autonomy. Maslow also supporting autonomy believes in a hierarchy of human needs i.e. when our basic needs such
Hewstone, M. Fincham, F. and Foster, J (2005). Psychology. Oxford: The British Psychological Society, and Blackwell Publishing. P3-23.
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