Margaret Archer

[PADemD]

In case you're curious, here is a link to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences page on Margaret Archer, her writings, and a video.

The PDF link to The Sociological Approach to the Tension between Human Equality and Social Inequality 1994 looks interesting.

http://www.pass.va/content/scienzesociali/en/academicians/ordinary/archer.html

[CentralCoaster]

1. Whoa. Hard to imagine sharing a slice and a beer with her.

I didn't catch the video, yet, but I did check her Amazon bio. Excerpt:

Follow
Biography
My theoretical work over the last twenty-five years has been devoted to the problem of structure and agency. Related to this is the problem of objectivity and subjectivity.


My fascination with structure (where do they come from and how do they exert effects) was prompted by moving from the London School of Economics to become a post-doctoral student at the Sorbonne. Those were the years of the 1968 événements. It seemed to me that the centralised structure of the French educational system was equally central in accounting for a political outburst which very nearly toppled the Fifth Republic. Conversely, the (then) decentralised nature of English education prompted localised outbursts, whose effects diffused rather than accumulating. The next seven years were devoted to understanding the structuring of national educational systems and their consequences for educational interaction and change. Thus Social Origins of Educational Systems (Sage 1979) is the key book for understanding the research trajectory that followed.

I shall never regret a summer spent working with Pierre Bourdieu's research team (or convincing Sage Publications, that La Reproducrion should be translated into English) nor my exchanges with Basil Bernstein at the London Institute of Education. However, it still remains the case that I believe Bourdieu advanced a set of theories which presumed the centralised structure of French education, just as Bernstein assumed English decentralisation, when both discussed cultural transmission.

Therefore, two books followed, which sought to come to grips with the structuring of culture and the structuring of social institutions. Firstly, there was Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory (CUP 1988). This conceptualises 'culture' as an objective phenomenon, in the same way as Popper's 'World Three', and thus makes the distinction between the ontological status of culture and what people/groups/classes make of it epistemologically. In other words, culture is not a 'community of shared meanings'. There is a Cultural System, replete with complementarities and contradictions, and there is Socio-Cultural interaction in which groups draw upon and elaborate various parts of the Cultural System - in accordance with their interests and aims. For those who like to establish intellectual pedigrees, there were four main influences upon this work; Karl Popper, Ernest Gellner and Tom Bottomore - all of whom were my teachers at LSE - and David Lockwood - whose 14 page article, differentiating between 'social' and 'system' integration is the most influential I have ever read....

I think it would take a while for me to get a real feel for where she and Sanders agree or disagree.

[PADemD]

2. Exactly

I think it would horrify her to hear Bernie use the word "ain't."

[msanthrope]

3. I love her. nt

[Surya Gayatri]

4. This is one formidable, no-nonsense woman who has obviously had an

illustrious career in academia and the social sciences. I expect she gives short shrift to ambitious pseudo-intellectuals and other hangers-on.