Structure And Agency

Structure And Agency:

Introduction:

We analyze the teacher occupation to show how the agent influences the structure in society, the structure is both an outcome of agent action and shape agency action, in this case we show how the agent shapes the structure in the society with reference to the teacher role in the society.

The agent and the structure:

The teacher can be viewed as an agent of change, his role is to educate and also instill discipline to the students, a teacher is an important role in the society and actions performed in this role will determine changes in the structure.

A teacher will make changes to the structure of education in order to achieve high levels of success for his students, the teacher will set rules and regulations in the education structure to achieve success, one example is where the teacher may make changes to the structure whereby he or she may require students to report early to school, giving internal exams to the students every week. These actions by the agent will change the system over time as his actions will be formalized and adopted by other institutions if these methods are seen to improve performance of the students.

Structure And Agency

The teacher will also influence the social system in many other ways, for example a teacher may incite others to demand higher pay, better working conditions, better housing and allowances, when the agents fight for the common goal they will make changes to the structure where teachers will now be paid higher incomes and be offered better working conditions.

Conclusion:

From the above discussion therefore it is clear that an agent may influence the structure in the society, an agent will seem to be controlled by the system but on another point of view the agent will determine the structure in the society.

References:

Antony Giddens (1984) Introduction to sociology, Polity Publishers, Cambridge

Berger Luckmann (1996) The Social Construction of Reality, Anchor publishers, New York

G. Ritzer (2001) Modern Sociological Theory, McGraw Hill press, New  York

Structure And Agency