Concepts of bounded agency in education, work, and the personal lives of young adults

Key takeaways

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Reading notes

Imported on 2024-05-07 19:56

⭐ Important

• & The paper concludes by explaining the concept of „bounded agency‟ as an alternative to „structured individualisation‟ as a way of understanding the experiences of people in changing social landscapes. (p. 2)
• & By „transition behaviour‟ we mean the patterns of activity people adopt in attempting to realise their personal interests and occupational goals within social requirements and structural opportunities. (p. 3)
• & We found evidence for four transition behaviours, which we labelled strategic, step-bystep, taking chances and wait and see behaviours. These were activity patterns that young people have adopted when moving along trajectories into labour markets. (p. 4)
• & „Strategic‟ and the „taking chances‟ approach to transition are expressions of this active kind of individualisation. (p. 4)
• & There is a more passive kind of individualisation in which the young person is carried along in socially accepted transition patterns, without a sense of ultimate goal or overall direction. Transition behaviour which is characterised by a „step-by-step‟ or a „wait and see‟ pattern is linked to a passive kind of individualisation (p. 4)
• & The group with broken transitions remained cautious about their future prospects, even where they had gained entry to the labour market, reflecting the unstable features of the secondary sector jobs. (p. 8)
• & The findings support the thesis that highly structured environments are associated in people‟s minds with the idea of reduced scope for individual, proactive effort. In highly structured environments opportunities are open only for those following clearly defined routes. Consequently, it is those same structural opportunities or barriers that are held responsible by individuals for any failure. (p. 13)
• & It was German sociologists who developed the idea that a process of 'individualisation' is taking place in society and in people's lives. Beck (1992, 1998) outlined the nature of an emergent „risk society.‟ This emphasised the increased uncertainty and unpredictability of the individual‟s life course. (p. 14)
• & Beck believed that individualisation heralded the dissolution of factors traditionally seen as determining many aspects of life in industrialised societies – class culture and consciousness, gender and family roles. In Englan (p. 14)
• & Bounded Agency 15 this work was paralleled by Anthony Giddens‟ more critical accounts of reflexive modernisation (1991, 1998). (p. 15)
• & More recently, Furlong and Cartmel (1997) and Engel and Strausser (1998) have argued that these accounts of individualisation are misleading. Furlong and Cartmel claim that the social world has only come to be regarded as unpredictable and filled with risks that can only be negotiated on an individual level, while, in fact, structural forces operate as powerfully as ever and the chains of human interdependence remain intact (p. 15)
• & Theoretical perspectives which consider the inter-relationships between structure and agency can be located in relation to three dimensions. The first dimension is that of social determinism versus individualisation and reflexivity in social biographies. The starting point for the „individualisation thesis‟ is usually attributed to Beck's outline of the „risk society‟ (1992, 1998) and its manifestation in the uncertain life situations of people. (p. 15)
• & As proponents of the idea that people are agents actively and individually engaged in the construction of their own biographies, Beck and Baethge are thus positioned close to the base o (p. 15)
• & Bounded Agency 16 the cube, while Ziehe‟s concept of „makeability‟ with its emphasis on internal control struggling with the effects of social forces, is placed higher on the structure-agency dimension. (p. 16)
• & The second dimension emphasises internal versus external control processes. Bandura (1997), Elder (1995), Flammer (1997), Rothbaum et al. (1982), Heckhausen and Schulz (1997) and other 'efficacy' researchers have emphasised internal processes of the 'acting individual' in relation to the external environment. There are limitations to personal control in all domains of life. Some aspects of environment and personal circumstances are extremely difficult to change. Others can be overcome by the exercise of initiative and learning. (p. 16)
• & The third dimension places the focus on social reproduction/conversion, exploring the degree to which social mobility and transformation can be attributed to individual and collective scope for action. The original position of rational choice theorists such as Goldthorpe (1998) has emphasised the overriding importance of analysing the conditions under which actors come to act, from the sociological perspective. Goldthorpe is positioned far along the social reproduction dimension, and close to the middle for control and agency/structure, in his recognition of the interplay of internal and external factors. (p. 16)
• & Furlong and Cartmel's emphasis on structural determinants, external processes and social reproduction places the 'epistemological fallacy' argument high on structure/agency and towards the back right hand intersection. Bourdieu's (1993) emphasis on social reproduction is also high but emphasises subjectivities of the acting individual and explores agency in relation to 'habitus' and 'field'. (p. 16)
• & As Elder (1995) has observed, all social transitions entail risk of losing personal control, with effects dependent on biography and on material and social situation. (p. 17)
• & The empirically grounded concept of bounded agency developed here sees the actors as having a past and imagined future possibilities, which guide and shape actions in the present, together with subjective perceptions of the structures they have to negotiate, the social landscapes which affect how they act. Bounded agency is socially situated agency, influenced but not determined by environments and emphasizing internalized frames of reference as well as external actions. By examining „bounded agency‟ the focus moves from „structured individualisation‟ onto individuals as actors, without losing the perspective of structuration. (p. 17)