Academic literature on the topic 'Giddens's structuration theory'

In the past decade the introduction of eLearning technologies has been associated with innovation in Higher Education (HE) as it brings significant change and has the potential to transform practice in many facets of university life. These learning technologies have been described as a 'disruptive‘ type of innovation as they can be a catalyst for transforming the strategic direction of HE and reach well beyond the traditional activities associated with classroom pedagogies. However, the levels of adoption of eLearning vary significantly between universities in the UK, ranging from simple online availability of course content to the extensive use of content management systems. Additionally, several studies report that a significant number of academic staff are making little use of these learning technologies and that the adoption of eLearning has failed to reach the predicted expectations. Previous approaches to the examination of the adoption and diffusion of eLearning have focused either on systemic change influenced by technology that transforms the entire organisation (macro-level studies) or on various parts of, or individuals within the institution that may benefit the most from adoption of the technology (micro-level studies). Recently, there has been recognition that these singular approaches have failed to fully appreciate the complexity of the adoption of eLearning within higher educational institutions. Furthermore, there is acknowledgement that the adoption of eLearning is influenced by both the potential adopter and the institutional properties. Thus, a number of commentators have proposed that future studies need to combine macro- and micro-level perspectives that regress from singular approaches and deploy more integrative perspectives that emphasise the interactions and interconnections between individual actions and institutional structure. This thesis is situated in the field of HE and innovation management and examines the adoption and diffusion of learning technologies through a series of case studies. Drawing on Giddens‘ 'Theory of Structuration‘ and the work of Rogers in the adoption and diffusion of innovations, these exploratory case studies examine the interaction between human agency and structure. The implications of this study for university executives, managers, and academic teaching staff are far reaching, and, to some degree, contradict accepted management practice and existing literature.

<p>The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse pupils’ and teachers’ views on pupils’ responsibility for their schoolwork and how this relates to a more comprehensive ideology of school and today’s high modern society. The analysis is inspired by Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory and the concepts of discursive consciousness, practical consciousness, rules, routines and resources.</p><p>At school level pupils’ and teachers’ views of pupils’ responsibility is shown in their practical and discursive consciousness. To capture this consciousness, observations were made during fifteen lessons in school year 9 (15-16 years of age). These lessons - “study times” - were introduced to increase freedom of choice, flexibility and responsibility. Sixty-eight pupils and twenty-two teachers were interviewed. The ideology expressed in pupils’ and teachers’ views on pupils’ responsibility was related to the official school ideology expressed in the national curriculum. Finally, an analysis was carried out inspired by Anthony Giddens’ and Ulrich Beck´s concepts used in their descriptions of the high modern society, individualism and value-relativism.</p><p>The results showed a discursive consensus between teachers and pupils concerning their views pupils’ responsibility for their schoolwork. The meaning of responsibility was taken for granted and implied doing the school tasks and to complete them in time. Both teachers and pupils expressed that many pupils’ have difficulties in taking this responsibility. A discrepancy between the pupils’ discursive and practical consciousness was found.</p><p>Rules and routines were created by the teachers to control the freedom of space offered during the “study times”. The pupils legitimated the teachers’ controlling function but in practice they offer resistance against the demand for responsibility.</p><p>The overall analysis identified three issues that are important for further discussions in research and educational practice. Responsibility and learning: Responsibility was observed as a part of a “culture of doing” separated from learning as such. Also, responsibility was linked to individual work. The freedom offered during the “study times” was used by both pupils, and teachers, to build relationships. This means that relationships were not created through work but rather despite it. Responsibility and the view of the pupils’: In pupils’ and teachers’ view of responsibility pupils were easy going, ruled by lust and/or responsible but not always according to the conditions stipulated by the school. The pupils were offered a freedom to choose but they were also held responsible for the consequences. While they could make the choice not to work, this would influence the evaluation of the achievements, and in reality make it a “non-choice”. The freedom was limited and conditioned. Responsibility as a democratic principle: The connection between responsibility and pupil participation expressed in the national curriculum was not to be found in pupils’ and teachers’ views of responsibility. While the pupils were offered participation in relation to which assignments to choose to work with during the “study times”. They were not invited to shape the rules and the routines for the schoolwork or to have influence on the contents of the work or the working environment. The pupils’ did not ask for more participation, but rather feared it would lead to chaos. The separation between participation and responsibility indicated in the study is suggested to weaken the idea of responsibility as one of the democratic principles.</p><p>In conclusion: The view of pupils’ responsibility for their schoolwork was built upon an individualistic ideology. known from Giddens and Becks description of high modernity. In contrast to their description, however my results show no signs of value-relativism</p>

Esta obra aponta questões de ordem metodológica e epistemológica na teoria da estruturação de Anthony Giddens, problemas reconhecidos e debatidos por vários de seus comentadores. Seguindo pistas encontradas nos próprios textos de Giddens, ela analisa com maior detalhe alguns livros de Mary Hesse e Roy Bhaskar, em busca de elementos que ajudem numa reconstrução metodológica da teoria de Giddens. Finalmente, ela argumenta em favor de uma maior atenção ao modelo de redes de Hesse, como uma ferramenta muito mais fértil para a análise de Giddens do que o realismo crítico de Bhaskar, para tentarmos resolver os dilemas que Giddens enfrenta. Como anexo, temos traduções de vários textos dos comentaristas mais importantes de Giddens, e também dois artigos do próprio, inéditos em português.<br>This work raises methodological and epistemological questions regarding Anthony Giddens theory of structuration, issues that have been acknowledged and debated by several of his critics. Following clues found in Giddens own texts, it analyses more deeply some works by Mary Hesse and Roy Bhaskar, searching for elements that would help with a methodological reconstruction of Giddens theory. Finally, it argues for greater attention towards Hesses network model, as a much more fruitful tool for analyzing Giddens than Bhaskars critical realism, in order to attempt to solve the dilemmas that Giddens faces. Also included are translations of several articles written by Giddens most important critics, and two papers by Giddens himself, previously unavailable in Portuguese.

India experienced huge media coverage from all over the world associated with the Nirbhaya-case in 2012, when a young middleclass girl was brutally raped in a bus by five men in Delhi. After this horrifying incident a lot of demonstrations followed all over India. Women in the urban areas was arguing for the same rights as men and was standing up for a more equal society where everybody is able to live as freely as someone else, no matter what gender you was born with. This study aim to examine what experiences, perceptions and opinions Indian journalists in English written press have of their reality from a gender perspective. We wanted to know how and when Indian journalist represent women and if there is a certain way of thinking about representation of women in the media content. In interviews with a total of eleven journalists and ethnographic observations in two of India’s largest cities we tried to examine the structures and perceptions that influenced the journalist’s worldview and thus also the messages that appears in the news. By using the theory of structuration, agenda setting, performativity and intersectionality we examined what structures that the journalists live and operates within and how this is affecting the media content.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:39:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5638.pdf: 3863541 bytes, checksum: 74ed5556a4774ead28ebb806dd347636 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-11-25<br>Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos<br>Reports from IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) call attention to the possibility of water shortages, to the collapse of the Amazon system, to the biodiversity crisis, and to the proliferation of extreme weather events. Anthony Giddens, British sociologist formulator of the theory of structuration, elaborates an analytical category appointing precisely the lack of concrete actions related to this environmental issue in the policy and in the daily practices. According to him, when practical measures for protecting the environment are put into practice, there will not be enough time to reverse the environmental collapse, setting the self-styled Giddens&#8223;s Paradox. Such point of view of environmental question transforms in normative, abstract and universal, leaving to conceive it as eminently contextual - result of the interaction between individuals, groups and institutions. Precisely so it this research takes this analytical category as a starting point for a relational approach of environmental issues through his own theory of structuration. So, the environment and the nature are now considered as structural principles: as rules and resources mobilized in the reproduction and transformation of social life and, therefore, as objects of appointment disputes and discursive resignifications. In order to analyze sociologically the relational aspect the environmental issue through a qualitative research - theoretically and methodologically linked to the theory of structuration the county of Brotas (São Paulo/Brazil) was established as case study. Are used as research methods: semi-structured interviews, snowball technique, documental survey, photo documentation and socioeconomic questionnaire. This particular location shows a convergence between the multiple conceptions of the environmental issue, the professionalization of ecotourism and of the discursive resignification of the rural areas, allowing the visualization of multiple cognitive perceptions of the environmental issue. The critical debate from Giddens enabled the analysis of four social processes of resignification in the Brotas county: a) The Jacaré-Pepira River; b) From the "hole" to the tourist attraction; c) From Radical to Disneyland; and d) The Estrada do Patrimônio . In summary, the trajectory of the dissertation seeks to discuss sociologically that the environmental issue does not arise in everyday life in a universal and normative form, but eminently as cognitive perception linked to the complexity of knowingness agents.<br>Relatórios do IPCC (Painel Intergovernamental sobre as Mudanças Climáticas) alertam para a possibilidade de escassez de recursos hídricos, de colapso do sistema amazônico, de crise da biodiversidade, e de proliferação de eventos climáticos extremos. Anthony Giddens, sociólogo britânico formulador da teoria da estruturação, elabora uma categoria analítica que nomeia justamente a ausência de ações concretas em relação a essa questão ambiental nas práticas políticas e cotidianas. Segundo ele, quando medidas práticas de proteção ao meio ambiente forem postas em práticas, não haverá mais tempo suficiente de reverter o quadro de colapso ambiental, configurando o autodenominado Paradoxo de Giddens. Tal perspectiva da questão ambiental acaba por torná-la normativa, abstrata e universal, deixando de concebê-la como eminentemente contextual - fruto da interação entre indivíduos, grupos e instituições. Justamente por isso a pesquisa toma essa categoria analítica como ponto de partida para uma abordagem relacional da questão ambiental através da própria teoria da estruturação. Assim, meio ambiente e natureza passam a ser considerados como princípios estruturais: como regras e recursos mobilizados na reprodução e transformação da vida social e, portanto, como objetos de disputas de nomeação e de ressignificação discursiva. Para analisar sociologicamente o aspecto relacional da questão ambiental através de uma pesquisa qualitativa - teórica e metodologicamente vinculada à teoria da estruturação - estabeleceu-se o município de Brotas-SP como estudo de caso. São utilizados como métodos de pesquisa: entrevistas semiestruturadas, técnica de bola de neve, levantamento documental, fotodocumentação e questionário socioeconômico. Tal localidade específica apresenta uma convergência entre as múltiplas concepções da questão ambiental, a profissionalização do ecoturismo e a ressignificação discursiva do próprio espaço rural, possibilitando a observação de múltiplas percepções cognitivas da questão ambiental. O debate crítico a partir de Giddens permitiu a análise de quatro processos sociais de ressignificação no município de Brotas: a) O Rio Jacaré-Pepira; b) Do buraco ao atrativo turístico; c) Do Radical à Disneylândia e d) A Estrada do Patrimônio. Em síntese, a trajetória da dissertação procura debater sociologicamente que a questão ambiental não emerge na vida cotidiana de forma universal e normativa, mas eminentemente como percepção cognitiva vinculada à complexidade da cognoscência dos agentes.

Shaoul et al. (2012) state that the accounting, scrutiny and oversight of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) remain areas of concern. Also, there have been calls for a more socio-technical and multidisciplinary approach to accounting and governance studies (Broadbent, 2012; Broadbent and Guthrie 2008), especially in relation to the empirical study of PPPs (Hodge et al., 2010). This thesis responds to these calls in part by drawing on Giddens’ structuration theory to examine the financial accountability and governance concerns that are created in PPP joint venture structures. The empirical work focuses on the health sector, which is identified as one of the sectors inundated by PPP activities, particularly in the UK (Treasury, 2012; Whitfield, 2010). It adopts a case study approach, based on qualitative methodology, which involves documentary analysis of secondary data and interviews in relation to two PPP schemes under the Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) scheme in the UK’s health sector.The thesis investigates: the extent to which the corporate structures of the LIFT scheme do complicate financial accountability and governance including external scrutiny; the extent to which the LIFT scheme does enhance partnership working between the public and private sector partners; the structures in financial accountability and governance in the LIFT scheme; the human agents that provide agency in financial accountability and governance in the LIFT scheme and; whether and in what ways structures and human agency in financial accountability and governance interact in the LIFT scheme and what the implications are.The thesis finds firstly that the complex corporate structure of the LIFT scheme is very complicated and the joint venture mechanism cannot be relied upon to deliver transparency of reporting. Secondly, as limited companies, all financial reporting follows private sector accounting regulations and Company Law and there is minimal disclosure in terms of information available to the general public. This is worsened by lack of information sharing between partners as evidenced in one case study group. Thirdly, there was considerable inconsistency in the reporting due to multiplicity of interpretive schemas between the two case study groups. Fourthly, there was considerable change in the reporting due both to changes in accounting regulations and changes in organisational structure and interpretive schemas throughout the period. Fifthly, there is lack of continuity of public sector oversight and monitoring as the public sector, in practice, restricts its activities to pre-operational phase and limited oversight after construction phases. Moreover, partnership working is very difficult in the context of profit seeking under the LIFT structure. Partnership working and success of the LIFT scheme may depend on trust, key personalities working together as well as leadership. From the structuration perspective, the study finds structural contradictions and conflicts of interests in financial accountability and governance practices. Therefore, transparency, public accountability, oversight and scrutiny are necessarily undermined and, policy makers should pay attention to not only the private sector technologies but also the manner in which they are used to benefit finance capital.

Background. The research on management in Swedish home care has been conductedmainly from sociological perspectives where structural conditions have been of interest (see for example Hagerman et al., 2013; Andersson, 2014; Österlind, 2013). The conditions impacting on management are described as differing ideals where the main ideals are the care perspective and the cost perspective (see for example Andersson, 2014; Österlind, 2013). The conflict between ideals create tensions between ideology and practice and different expectations (Antonsson, 2013) and may also create problems, dilemmas and paradoxes (Österlind, 2013). The rules impacting on the home care activities are bureaucratic rules stemming from the state and municipality. However, Trydegård (2000) argues that at the same time there is room for autonomy and path-dependence in the home care units. Purpose and research approach. There seems to be a lack of studies on management control in home care, and more especially no study combining a discourse, structures and theories on management control. The purpose of this thesis is to explore management control in home care in the relation between structures and managers’ interpretative repertoires in a social-constructionist perspective. The purpose is also to create a prototype model for further research. The ontological positioning and theoretical framework are building on Giddens’ structuration theory (1979, 1984) in which structures are seen as both the medium and outcome of social interaction and rules are important. The units of analysis are the managers’ accounts on management control in semi-structured interviews. The accounts are analysed in a so called case cluster analysis (McClintock et al., 1979) in the software program NVivo. The codes are building on Ouchi’s theory of management control (1979) as ‘input control’, ‘behaviour control’, ‘output control’ and ‘clan control’, and also building on Giddens’ structuration theory (1978, 1984) defined as 8 characteristics of rules, ‘normative sanctions’, ‘signification of meaning’, ‘authoritative’ or ‘allocative resources’. Findings. The findings reveal that home care is highly bureaucratic in input and output control by the use of formal rules stemming from municipality or state. In behaviour control home care has a medium-low degree of bureaucracy if exercised through ‘signification of meaning’ and medium-high when exercised through ‘authoritative resources’. In clan control home care has a low degree of bureaucracy and can either be positive or negative depending on how informal leaders in the unit impact on cooperation between care personnel and if there is trust and a good communication between manager and care personnel. Two main patterns of structuration appear: creation of structures for an efficient process flow of home care to increase efficiency, and co-creation of new rules for behaviour to increase cooperation. Managers focus on different situations of management control depending on conditions in the home care unit and own interpretations. Two interpretative repertoires are identified; the discourse on hard matters is created in relation to matters that are more rigid in structure, such as legislation and municipal goals and that are difficult to interpret differently, whereas soft matters are created in discourse around dilemmas and human or relational aspects of control.