Heroism Part I 

Agency, Structure and Social Change

Agency is the capacity to act independently and to exercise freedom of choice. Agency is secularized , humanized and socialized. Agency is also shaped and get shaped by the environment.

There are different kinds of agencies that affects social change

1. Supernaturals 
2. Natural Forces
3. Great Individuals
• not yet socialized.
• both humanize and socialized
4. Normal people - they also play a role on social change on the metaphor of market and metaphor of lingustics.

Social change as defined is an aggregated and result of what societal members do for their own private reason. Change may or may not be intended.

Theories of Social 

Walter Buckley and Morphogenesis

A system model is a morphogenic system. Morphogenesis refers to the process on which we find to elaborate or change a system given form, structure or state.

Amatai Etzioni and Active Society

It is the mobilization of societal activation. Human society as explained is a macroscopic and permanent social movement engaged in the intensive and perpetual self transformation.

Alain Tourain and Self-producing Society

Man makes their own history.

Michael Croziel and Ethaniel Fried's Interdependence of Action and System

Systems does not exists without actors. Actors does not exist without a system. They also mentioned the concept of collective learning and the learning society

Anthony Giddens and Structuration 

A description of human conduct, the ultimate motor of structuration is human actor. History is a contingent result of human agency. 

Tom Burns and Upsalla Group

They introduced the theory of rule system, it discusses how structure is being shaped, howw human activities affect the system. Rule systems are the context specific rules that human action which regulates human transformation. Rule regimes are the constraints of social actions and rule grammars are the social rules that done actions of every individual daily with others.

Margaret Archer and Elaborated Theory of Morphogenesis

She mentions two important points, the radical structuring and analytic dualism.

Insights

1. Society is a product of change.
2. Change is self-transformation.
3. The ultimate motor of change is agency
4. The speed of change are contestable among multiple agents
5. action occurs in context
6. Duality of actions. Agency is  both producers and product of change.

References

• Sztompka, Piotr The Sociology of Social Change (1993).