Structuration

Structuration theory is a way of looking at social phenomena as the product of social structures and social action, rather than just one or the other of these. Social structures are understood as intended and unintended outcomes produced by social actors whose actions are in turn carried out in, and profoundly influenced by, their social-structural context. Social actors, who are knowledgeable and reflexive, will have been shaped in considerable part through their insertion and socialization into social structures and, conversely, those social structures will be shaped in significant part by the actors who populate them. Thus, not only are social actors constituted in significant part by structures, but structures are constituted in significant part by social actors. There is a continual and dynamic process in which actors situated within structures interpretatively draw upon that context in producing their meaningful practices, and those practices, in turn, help to constitute the structures" through contributing to their reproduction or through affecting change.