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Actions and Structure
Research Methods and Social Theory
Edited by:
- Nigel G Fielding - University of Surrey, UK
August 1988 | 208 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Social scientists have always recognised a divergence between approaches which emphasise the constraining power of social structure and those which interpret society through the cumulative effects of actions of individuals. In recent years there has been renewed interest in the latter through the micro-sociology of everyday life. Social scientists are now taking stock of the implications of micro-sociological research for the analysis of structure and the macro-level theory of society. In Actions and Structure the value of micro-sociological research for the analysis of social order is assessed. Individual chapters evaluate new research approaches from discourse and conversational analysis, mathematical, interactionist and phenomenological sociologies and network analysis. Throughout the authors assess how these approaches contribute to current debates around theoretical formulations of organization, structure and power.
Nigel Fielding
Between Micro and Macro
Karin Knorr-Cetina
The Micro-Social Order
Wes Sharrock and Rod Watson
Autonomy Among Social Theories
Peter K Manning
Semiotics and Social Theory
Paul Rock
Micro-Sociology and Power
Colin Clark and Trevor Pinch
Micro-Sociology and Micro-Economics
John Brewer
Micro-Sociology and the `Duality of Structure'
John Scott and Peter Cowley
Individual and Social Connections
Peter Abell
The `Structuration' of Action
Nigel Fielding
Micro-Sociology and Macro Theory
`This collection takes on issues of the first importance for sociology. The opening 'theory' chapters attempt to refine our understanding of the ontological configurations involved in perceiving structure and agency as a duality. Then comes the great novelty of the work in that the remaining papers address the issue of how knowledge of this duality should inform empirical research.... at the micro level there is knowledgeability in abundance here and Fielding and SAGE are to be congratulated for getting it out.' - Sociology
