Understanding Agency

Understanding Agency PDF Author: Barry Barnes
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761963684
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
In this penetrating and assured book, one of the leading commentators in the field argues that social theory is moving in the wrong direction in its reflections on human freedom and autonomy. It has borrowed notions of 'agency' and 'choice' from everyday discourse, but increasingly it puts a misconceived individualistic gloss upon them. Against this, Barnes unequivocally identifies human beings as social agents in a profound sense, and emphasises the vital importance of their sociability. Notions of 'agency', 'freedom' and 'choice' have to be understood by reference to their role in communicative interaction; they are key components of the discourse through which human beings identify each other, and have effects upon each other, as soci

Understanding Agency

Understanding Agency PDF Author: Barry Barnes
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761963684
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

Get Book

Book Description
In this penetrating and assured book, one of the leading commentators in the field argues that social theory is moving in the wrong direction in its reflections on human freedom and autonomy. It has borrowed notions of 'agency' and 'choice' from everyday discourse, but increasingly it puts a misconceived individualistic gloss upon them. Against this, Barnes unequivocally identifies human beings as social agents in a profound sense, and emphasises the vital importance of their sociability. Notions of 'agency', 'freedom' and 'choice' have to be understood by reference to their role in communicative interaction; they are key components of the discourse through which human beings identify each other, and have effects upon each other, as soci

Understanding Human Agency

Understanding Human Agency PDF Author: Erasmus Mayr
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191619264
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Our self-understanding as human agents includes a commitment to three crucial claims about human agency: that agents must be active, that actions are part of the natural order of the universe, and that intentional actions can be explained by the agent's reasons for acting. While all of these claims are indispensable elements of our view of ourselves as human agents, they are in continuous conflict and tension with one another, especially once one adopts the currently predominant view of what the natural order must be like. One of the central tasks of philosophy of action consists in showing how, despite appearances, these conflicts can be resolved and our self-understanding as agents be vindicated. The mainstream of contemporary philosophy of action holds that this task can only be fulfilled by an event-causal reductive view of human agency, paradigmatically embodied in the so-called 'standard model' developed by Donald Davidson. Erasmus Mayr, in contrast, develops a new agent-causal solution to these conflicts and shows why this solution is superior both to event-causalist accounts and to Von Wright's intentionalism about agency. He offers a comprehensive theory of substance-causation on the basis of a realist conception of powers, which allows one to see how the widespread rejection of agent-causation rests on an unfounded 'Humean' view of nature and of causal processes. At the same time, Mayr addresses the question of the nature of reasons for acting and complements its substance-causal account of activity with a non-causal account of acting for reasons in terms of following a standard of success.

Understanding Agency

Understanding Agency PDF Author: Liz Jeffery
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1847423302
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Using student-friendly features such as case studies and a glossary, this textbook provides an introduction to the concept of agency and how it can usefully inform social welfare practice. It considers how agency and power inter-relate and how it can inform new ways of thinking about the individual and society. Tracing the origins of agency and exploring the contributions of key thinkers from sociological and social policy perspectives, the book demonstrates a model of achievable change and in doing so represents an optimistic view on social work's potential to contribute to this. It is essential reading for students and professionals training in social welfare, social work and education.

Exercising Agency

Exercising Agency PDF Author: Mark Mullaly
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317138090
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Exercising Agency is a book about decision making. In particular, it looks in detail at how a very important type of organizational decision gets made: whether or not to initiate a project. Making strategic decisions of this kind can never be a wholly rational and scientific process. And Exercising Agency lifts the lid on many of the important behavioural factors that inform project decisions: power and politics, personality, the ’rules’ of an organization. Mark Mullaly draws on his research to provide practical guidance for decision makers; project shapers, approving executives and those responsible for how initiation decisions are made. By explaining the influence, value and risks associated with the elements that inform the way we make strategic decisions he will help you identify how individuals and organizations can best support the process to ensure project initiation decisions are effective and most closely underpin the priorities of the organization. If you are involved in framing or making decisions about the future of your organization; the projects that you do or don’t decide to initiate, then read this book. It won’t make the decisions any easier but it will help you improve the quality of the decisions you make and over time, the effectiveness of your organizational decision making.

Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency

Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency PDF Author: Jack Martin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441910654
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
At its core, psychology is about persons: their thinking, their problems, the improvement of their lives. The understanding of persons is crucial to the discipline. But according to this provocative new book, between current essentialist theories that rely on biological models, and constructionist approaches based on sociocultural experience, the concept of the person has all but vanished from psychology. Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency recasts theories of mind, behavior, and self, synthesizing a range of psychologists and philosophers to restore the centrality of personhood—especially the ability to make choices and decisions—to the discipline. The authors’ unique perspective de-emphasizes method and formula in favor of moral agency and life experience, reveals frequently overlooked contributions of psychology to the study of individuals and groups, and traces traditions of selfhood and personhood theory, including: The pre-psychological history of personhood, a developmental theory of situated, agentive personhood, the political disposition of self as a kind of understanding, Human agency as a condition of personhood, Emergentist theories in psychology, the development of the perspectival self. Persons represents an intriguing new path in the study of the human condition in our globalizing world. Researchers in developmental, social, and clinical psychology as well as social science philosophers will find in these pages profound implications not only for psychology but also for education, politics, and ethics.

Understanding Human Agency

Understanding Human Agency PDF Author: Erasmus Mayr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199606218
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Revised version of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universiteat, 2007.

Understanding Your Social Agency

Understanding Your Social Agency PDF Author: Armand Lauffer
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1412926521
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Understanding Your Nonprofit Agency, written by internationally renowned scholar Armand Lauffer, will fill the growing need for the distinction between corporate business operations and nonprofit operations. The book will focus on how nonprofit agencies operate and not how they are managed. It has been assumed that both entities function similarly. Currently, this assumption is increasingly seen as groundless: nonprofit and profit-driven organizations have different goals and function differently from each other. This text addresses the current trend to differentiate how nonprofits are disctint.

Understanding Your Social Agency

Understanding Your Social Agency PDF Author: Armand Lauffer
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1452239460
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Provides readers with an array of lenses for looking at a social agency from the outside in, and from the inside out This highly accessible text takes into account the organizational dynamics that readers are likely to have experienced and provides them with the conceptual tools for reassessing their understanding and considering how to act on their new insights. Renowned scholar Armand Lauffer shows readers how to apply organizational theories to challenges they confront at work, and to uncover other challenges they may not yet be aware of.

Understanding the Professional Agency of Female Language Teachers in a Chinese University

Understanding the Professional Agency of Female Language Teachers in a Chinese University PDF Author: Xiaolei Ruan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000523675
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Centering on a qualitative study of three female English teachers in Shanghai, China, the book explores female language teachers' perceived discrepancies and agency exercised in their teaching, research and teacher learning practices. By adopting multiple research methods, such as narrative questionnaire, metaphor, timeline, interview and classroom observation, this study reveals that female language teachers’ agency is a dynamic entity manifested in the ongoing negotiation of agency belief, agency practice, and agency inclination, as well as the interaction of individual and the environment. Though there are certain limitations concerning representativeness and generalizability, the author provides a thick description of how female language teachers in China are exercising agency to fulfill their career development, which offers insightful suggestions to language education in both China and broader areas globally. The book will appeal to researchers studying teacher education and foreign (English) language teaching, university teachers, especially female foreign language teachers, PhD students and graduate students, as well as career women.

The Role of Agency and Memory in Historical Understanding

The Role of Agency and Memory in Historical Understanding PDF Author: Gordon P. Andrews
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443893889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
This book, the first in a series entitled Historical and Pedagogical Issues: Insights from the Great Lakes History Conference, addresses historical and pedagogical issues. It explores the agency of historical actors tied to larger movements, demonstrating the efficacy and power of individuals to act with historical impact. It also describes the nuanced role of memory, often neglected in larger national or global social movements. This volume explores these powerful themes through a broad range of topics, including the research and pedagogy of revolution, reform, and rebellion as they are applied to race, ethnicity, political movements, labour, reconciliation, memory, and moral responsibility. The book will interest researchers that have an interest in both, or either, history and pedagogy.