Clarifying the different ways Archer can be used in educational research.

1. Margaret Archer’s social realism
An attempt in concept mapping to assist my understanding of the contribution and applicability of each theoretical aspect
Whole presentation CC-BY Sarah Lambert slambe@deakin.edu.au
V1 13 April 2017

2. Archer’s work
 “For more than twenty-five years now, she (Archer) has been working her way through the issue
of how to think culture, social structure and agency, and how to link them without reduction or
conflation.”
 MAUSS. (2004). Structure, Agency, and the Internal Conversation. Contemporary Sociology: A
Journal of Reviews, 33(6), 731–732. http://doi.org/10.1177/009430610403300664

3. Using 1988 Archer vs 2003 Archer
 Cox, G., & Trotter, H. (2016). Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and
Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities. IRRODL
 Brew, A., Boud, D., Lucas, L., & Crawford, K. (2013). Reflexive deliberation in international research
collaboration: minimising risk and maximising opportunity. Higher Education, 66, 93–104.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9592-6
 Both useful and interesting
 Different foci, micro (individuals, teams) vs macro (organisational cultures)
 Similar addition of a second more focussed conceptual framework relevant to their particular
field of study
 “running one theory through another” Etienne Wenger-Traynor (The Practice of Theory: confessions of a
social learning theorist – 2013)

4. Cox and Trotter 2016
 Uses mostly Archer’s earlier work - “Archer’s theory of social realism” defined as “the concepts of
structure, culture and agency to help analyse decisions and activity in a given context”
 “Culture” ,“Structure” and “Agency” are headings to organise the analysis
 2 additional frameworks for “institutional cultures” flesh out their context and the kind of “culture”
they are focussing on, makes is more specific to their topic

5. Cox and Trotter 2016
Individuals are active
‘agents’ who follow a
trajectory which
starts with their
‘concerns’
Agents have
properties and
powers, are
autonomous
Social structures eg
organisations, roles, rules,
boundaries, budgets, policies
Cultural setting “set of beliefs
or ideas in which agents find
themselves” – this paper focusses
on organisational cultures,
mentions the culture of discipline
pedagogy.
“Can be
understood as
context”
Archer: Agents mediate Structures and
Cultures – these may be experienced
as enablers, or constraints. Agents
may problem-solve and overcome
constraints.
Cox and Trotter finding: Structures may also be ‘hygiene’ factors ie
a precondition for action but still need active agents work.
Different OER policies more or less likely to effect change
depending on org culture and scope for agency.
2 extra org cultures frameworks used
to classify orgs - “Collegial,
Bureaucratic, or Managerial”

6. Brew et al 2016
 Uses mostly Archer’s work post 2003 which introduced the idea of the “internal conversations” as
the answer to how exactly the tension of agency vs structure is resolved
 “Cultures” are not a focus for this paper however “organisational constraints” and “institutional
discourses” are discussed as part of the context
 Rambur’s 2009 framework is the start point – Archer’s work is threaded through it.
 “Rambur’s (2009) framework, then, enables us to identify and differentiate the structural and the agentic
aspects of our research collaboration and how these change in relation to risk. Archer’s concepts of
constraint and enablement aid us in identifying how that risk can be managed.”

7. Brew et al 2016
Individual
researcher
working with a
distributed,
international
research team
“Social structures and
situations provide arenas
where people pursue their
personal projects and
develop their social identity”
eg personal research
projects and identity as a
researcher within
international collaborations
Culture implied, not
explicitly discussed.
“Organisational constraints”
and “institutional discourses”
are mentioned
Archer (2003, p. 130) argues that reflexive
deliberations mediate structure and agency. The
circumstances and structures in which we find
ourselves put particular constraints on our actions
as individuals and groups. We exercise power as
agents by deliberating on the circumstances in
which we find ourselves and it is these
deliberations that are responsible for how we
delineate our concerns, how we diagnose what is
to be done and our actions in relation to the
outcomes we want.
Brew et al: argues that personal and collective reflexive
deliberations through which structural and agentic constraints and
enablements (Archer 2007) are discussed by collaborators are
important to the management of risk in research collaboration and
hence to successful research outcomes. The paper draws attention
to aspects of collaboration that are derived from, on the one hand,
the institutional context and the roles we occupy and, on the other
hand, come from our personal histories, positions and career
trajectories.
Context or background
Agency
Structural risks (organisational
complexity, increase risk of increased
costs and time to publication), lead to
agentic risk ie threat to identity as a
researcher

8. Back to Archer’s work
And how the ideas developed

9. Develops her arguments over 4 volumes
Culture and Agency 1988 Realist Social Theory 1995 Being Human 2000
Structure, Agency and the
Internal Conversation 2003
Paraphrasing the MAUSS review article heavily here…

10. Develops her arguments over 4 volumes
Culture and Agency 1988 Realist Social Theory 1995 Being Human 2000
Structure, Agency and the
Internal Conversation 2003
Critical of the reductive tendencies of contemporary social theory – 2 camps:
those who though culture was an amalgam of what individuals did ie individuals as
powerful, or the reverse ie individuals had no power ie could only do things
“emenating out of culture”. Avoid a dialectic relationship between culture and
agency. Instead “acknowledges the relative autonomy of cultural systems and
social structures, while analytically distinguishing them from the practices of the
life-world that produce or transform them”. Causal powers of cultural systems and
social structures are always mediated through human agency (no agency : no
system)
What is
meant by
“life-world”
here?
Builds on David Lockwood’s “theoretical attempt to marry structural functionalism with conflict sociology”
Individualistsi
e Max
Weber, Karl
Popper and
Raymond
Boudon
Structuralists
ie Emile
Durkheim,
Talcott
Parsons or
Louis
Althusser

11. Develops her arguments over 4 volumes
Culture and Agency 1988 Realist Social Theory 1995 Being Human 2000
Structure, Agency and the
Internal Conversation 2003
“Complicated analysis of the dynamic relations … between cultural systems (logical
relations between ideas), social structures (internal relations of the first, second and
third order between positions) and human agents. Archer argues that cultural
systems can influence social structures and vice versa, but they can only do so
indirectly and mediately by structuring the situation of actions through constraints
and enablements. The force of the latter depends, objectively, on the social position
of the agents and, subjectively, on their projects, the two being linked to a certain
extent by the causality of the probable (Bourdieu) which adjusts projects to
possibilities.” (MAUSS revue)
Can anyone
explain
morphogenetic
theory?
“Draws in Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism to give ontological depth to the morphogenetic theory.

12. Develops her arguments over 4 volumes
Culture and Agency 1988 Realist Social Theory 1995 Being Human 2000
Structure, Agency and the
Internal Conversation 2003
“In line with the main tenets of critical realism, she grants causal powers to agency,
which cannot be deduced from, or reduced to, the causal powers of society or
culture…she develops a theory of human agency…(based on) a sequential account
of nested identities in which selfhood emerges from consciousness, personal
identity from selfhood, and social identity from personal identity… (After formation
in childhood) personal identity sets in as a life long quest for authenticity.” ie we
have concerns, deliberate reflexively, take actions, become individual agents AND
social actors.
“Archer
investigates the
morphogenesis
of agency”??
Countering Rom Harré’s constructivist account of the discursive self, Archer argues with Jean Piaget and Maurice
Merleau-Ponty that, even before the acquisition of language and independently of it, the differentiation of the self from
the world occurs through the embodied engagement with the world.

13. Develops her arguments over 4 volumes
Culture and Agency
1988
Realist Social Theory
1995
Being Human 2000
Structure, Agency
and the Internal
Conversation 2003
Social agents define who they are and their ultimate concerns through ruminating
on and deliberating on personal projects which they commit to. The “internal
conversation” constitutes the mediatory mechanism which links the causal powers
of structure to agency. Social structures and cultural systems exercise their causal
powers by structuring the situation of action through constraints and enablements,
(via) projects (of the actors choosing) …(no projects : no constraints or
enablements)” MAUSS review
Have you seen
this used in
other papers?
the theoretical argument of the internal conversation is worked out in and through an
extended discussion with American pragmatism (James, Peirce and Mead)

14. Develops her arguments over 4 volumes
Culture and Agency
1988
Realist Social Theory
1995
Being Human 2000
Structure, Agency
and the Internal
Conversation 2003
Latter half of book is empirical study (interviews 20 people) and identifies 4
different types of reflexivity (ie types of internal conversationalists.) Communicative
reflexives think and then talk, mostly women. Autonomous reflexives think and
then act, mostly men. Meta-reflexives idealists who critically reflect on their
reflections ie they think and think. Fractured reflexives have broken lives, think and
become distressed, reflexivity does not work for them. The empirical work
uncovers something not predicted with the theory – people can take on different
reflexivity depending on context. (from MAUSS review)
What do we
think of the
gendered
aspect?
the theoretical argument of the internal conversation is worked out in and through an
extended discussion with American pragmatism (James, Peirce and Mead)

15. Archer 2007 work
 New work: Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility
 I haven’t read this yet
 Looks to extend and applies her work to social mobility
 Some consideration of social roles and norms was made in the “Being Human” 2000 volume, where
Archer discussed individual and social identities and the relationship between them