integrated approaches (structuration)

Question 1

Max Weber

Answer 1

• during modern era
• original social action theorist
• rejected structural approaches=deterministic
• recognised that people didn’t have complete free choice due to constraining structures of inequality
• talks about class status and party (organisation), all affect the ability to make choices
• therefore is important to understand these factors when examining people’s actions

Question 2

Giddens

Answer 2

• late modern
• a combo of structure + action- 2 sides of the same coin and cannot be seperated or examined alone
• Social structures like social institutions, beliefs, values and traditions give people a framework of rules and established ways of doing things
• these enable people to live in society, and as a result they reproduce existing strucutres
• these structures can constrain but also enable human action to take place in an orderly way
• people can act to change social structures, as long as they go about this in the right way

Question 3

duality of structure

Answer 3

structure (organisation, context, rules, norms, resources, regularity, etc) -> agency (decisions, actions, routines, procedure)

= structure enables action but also restricts it by routine, and actions people take enable structures to continue.

Question 4

ontological security

Answer 4

the need to feel that the world around us is orderly and stable, this encourages actinos that maintain the structures rather than changing them

Question 5

reflexive monitoring

Answer 5

constantly reflecting on actions and changing them as needed due to the consequences

Question 6

unintended consequences

Answer 6

we may change the world around us, but it isn’t always in the intended way