Margaret Archer Research Articles

THE TRANSFORMATIVE EFFECT OF SOUTH AFRICAN HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY FRAMEWORKS THROUGH THE LENS OF MARGARET ARCHER’S SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS

After the end of the apartheid regime, the South African Government and other stakeholders have made several commitments to enhance and transform the nation's educational system, particularly higher education. To achieve this, the government implemented several educational reforms, passed legislation, and established policies. Despite some discussions and debates surrounding educational improvement, there is still a lack of comprehensive analysis that examines the specific contributions, challenges, and potential challenges of these policy frameworks in driving positive transformations. Accordingly, this research examines the transformative impact of South African Higher Education policy frameworks using Margaret Archer's morphogenetic theory as an analytical framework. The study conducts a desktop document analysis of published literature, including policy documents from the South African government, to explore the contributions and challenges of these policy frameworks. The analysis reveals a lack of significant changes in agency, social, and cultural structures, indicating the absence of morphogenesis processes. Furthermore, there is a lack of commitment from various agents to the policy objectives, particularly evident in weaknesses in fulfilling mandates and the resulting institutional instability due to student protests. The study highlights that the anticipated impact of policies, strategies, and financial resources may have fallen short of expectations regarding the transformation process. The findings contribute to understanding the limitations and effectiveness of South African Higher Education policy frameworks, offering insights into the complex dynamics between structure, culture, and agency. This research informs policymakers, educators, and stakeholders involved in higher education by providing recommendations to enhance the transformative potential of these policy frameworks. The research has broader implications for understanding educational improvement and policy frameworks in other contexts, as the insights gained from this study can be applicable and valuable to similar settings facing challenges in educational reforms..

VET for all: Assessing the case of Bangladesh

Presenting a case study of Bangladesh, this article contributes to our understanding of how VET has expanded in LMICs, and how this process has been shaped by global efforts to improve VET’s accessibility. The analysis draws on historical institutionalism and the work of Margaret Archer, and is based on policy document analysis and the interpretation of quantitative and qualitative data. The article concludes that, even when it is weakly linked to the labor market, formal VET expands because of the actions of key policy actors and societal demand for formal qualifications that signal academic, rather than vocational, competence.

Mirror, Mirror Outside My Wall: Reflexive Impacts of Insider/Outsider Collaborative Inquiry on the Insider Researcher

Based to a considerable extent on Margaret Archer’s approach to reflexive agency, we discuss a multi-year insider/outsider research collaboration that has taken place in a University-based Centre designed to bring academics and management practitioners together to conduct applied research and learn from each other. We focus in particular on the experiences of the insider researcher, showing how, based on her reflexive practice, the collaboration has led to both scholarly contributions and changes in practice in the Centre and her University. In doing so, we flesh out the importance of reflexivity and its important impacts on academic-practitioner collaborations. In long-term insider/outsider collaborations that provide psychologically safe places, outsider researchers can metaphorically hold a mirror up to insider researchers that foster their reflexivity and its subsequent impacts.

A scoping review of factors that influence career changers’ motivations and decisions when considering teaching

ABSTRACT Ongoing shortages of quality teachers has prompted policy interest into career changers as potential solutions. Although Initial Teacher Education (ITE) comprises one-third career changers, little is known about this group. This paper presents a scoping review of career changers’ motivations/decisions to choose teaching as a career. Themes from inductive thematic analysis are deductively synthesised using Margaret Archer’s theories on emergent properties. Knowledge of the profession, time, and career conditions enabled decisions to teach, while the status of teaching, beliefs about teaching, and money could enable but often constrained. Recommendations are suggested for attracting quality career changers into teaching; these include further research, increased flexibility in ITE, teaching taster pathways, and raising respect for the profession.

Scaffolding Epistemological Access in the Context of Forbidden Discourses: A Case Study of a Grade 4 Natural Science Class in a Namibian School

Qualitative in orientation and using the case study methodology, the research drew upon Margaret Archer’s theory of agency to examine how, at the point of confluence of culture, structure and agency, the teacher’s agency was enabled or constrained in attaining the agential project of scaffolding epistemological access in a Grade 4 Natural Science classroom. The study found that when positioned into a face-to-face relationship, or a direct relationship, with the structural, cultural, and agential causal powers, the teacher’s agential project of scaffolding epistemological access in a Grade 4 Natural Science classroom was constrained than enabled. The teacher was placed into a pedagogical dilemma where on the one hand, structural causal powers (e.g., the curriculum, syllabus, school authorities) demanded the teaching of topics on human sexual reproduction and human excretory systems. At the same time, causal cultural powers exerted by cultural properties, which include values, norms, and taboos, render conversation with young children over sexual reproduction matters and human excretory system forbidden discourses. The study concluded that cultural factors are among the myriad factors that potentially lead to poor performance in Natural Science by Namibian learners and African learners in general. The study recommends that in teacher education programs, it is essential to interrogate the school curriculum regarding its sensitivity and responsiveness to the cultural contexts of both teachers and learners. Similarly, such programs should investigate developing appropriate agential powers of aspiring teachers to resist or circumvent causal cultural powers that obstruct or hinder meaningful science learning.

L’aggressione e l'incontro: risonanza e critica della modernità in Hartmut Rosa

Hartmut Rosa has grown to international celebrity thanks to his theory of social acceleration as a new interpretation of modernity, linked with the imperative of growth and the idea of alienation. His recent work has revolved around the concept of resonance, and although this has raised significant interest, its positioning within contemporary sociological theory still needs further study. This article starts situating the notion of resonance in the wider context of Rosa’s theoretical enterprise (section 1). The following section outlines the key concepts and the main argument comprising his theory of resonance, and briefly examines some specific challenges to resonance emerging in the current predicament (section 2). Finally, the article ends by connecting idea of resonance with a few pivotal themes in contemporary sociological theory, with a special focus on Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic approach and her theory of the Self and personal reflexivity (section 3). The core thesis of the article is that the notion of resonance still calls for better understanding within social theory, precisely because of the specific type of critique of modernity inherent in such a concept.

What affects the teaching agency of university instructors? A social realist perspective

ABSTRACT This study uses China as a case country to investigate the factors that influence university instructors’ teaching agency by drawing on experiences in the engineering field using Margaret Archer’s social realist framework. With survey results including 659 valid responses, the findings reveal that instructors’ delivery of contextual instruction and use of multiple assessment methods to measure student learning are both directly influenced by two reflexivity-related factors, namely, intrinsic motivation for teaching and instructors’ self-efficacy with regard to engaging students in engineering classes. However, one’s intrinsic motivation for teaching, as an internal reflexive factor, is also influenced by the institutional provision of resources for teaching and the effects of the training activities organized by institutions, which are structural factors associated with the working context. Although one’s self-efficacy in engaging students in engineering classes is not directly influenced by the effectiveness of pedagogical training, it is influenced by the resources provided by the institution to support teaching. Furthermore, the effects of organized training activities to support teaching are also found to have a direct impact on instructors’ use of multiple assessment methods in their teaching practices. This study advances our understanding of how teaching excellence can be achieved at the university level.

A Critical Realist Approach to Reflexivity in Sustainability Research

In sustainability science, the research is expected to go beyond disciplinary thinking and incorporate different concepts, methods, and data to explore nature–society interactions at different levels and scales. In realizing these expectations, reflexivity is often noted as an influential factor in inter- and transdisciplinary research processes in sustainability science, wherein researchers reflect on their assumptions, judgments, roles, and positions in the research processes, rethink their ways of knowing and doing, and open up new possibilities for actions. Despite the growing literature on the notion of reflexivity in sustainability science and how it emerges during the research processes, the debates and discussions are often based on lessons learned from sustainability research projects, drawing on individuals’ experiences and motivations. This paper aims to grapple with the notion of reflexivity from a structural point of view, which is less discussed in sustainability research, by drawing on critical realist literature. The paper first presents how reflexivity is understood and analyzed in inter- and transdisciplinary research processes by reviewing the recent studies of reflexivity in sustainability science research. Second, it highlights the knowledge gaps and the need to engage with an alternative view on reflexivity offered by Margaret Archer, one of the leading critical realist scholars. Third, it takes Archer’s framework on reflexivity into sustainability research to explain the causal mechanisms impeding the emergence of meta-reflexivity in the process of knowledge integration and production in contemporary marketized and managerialized universities. Finally, the paper argues that in establishing practices (modus vivendi) that could address the structural barriers (not observable challenges), we need collective agency. To this end, it discusses different collective initiatives and courses of action that could lead to the emergence of collective agency, capable of tackling the cultural and material barriers to reflexivity.

Four female Khoisan language translators across three centuries of Cape history: a morphogenetic analysis

Female translators are highly atypical in South African colonial history. Yet four important female translators appear on the scene who, interestingly, all translated or interpreted into or from Khoesan languages. Therefore, apart from their marginalised position as women, these translators are also linked to marginalised languages. These translators are Krotoa, a Khoe interpreter employed by colonial administrator Jan van Riebeeck, Zara Schmelen, a Nama mission assistant and Bible translator, and Lucy Lloyd and Dorothea Bleek, so-called Bushman researchers and relatives of the famous philologist Wilhelm Bleek. This article is interested in the ways in which the work of these early female translators expressed social conditioning and in the characteristics of their agency within a restrictive social space. The hindering and enabling factors involved in these women’s practice of translation and interpreting is analysed and particular attention is paid to the ideological characteristics of their work. In the analysis of the social characteristics of translation, Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic approach is employed. Archer’s approach involves an investigation of structure, culture and agency and the ways in which these contribute to cycles of social change (morphogenesis) or maintenance (morphostasis). With regard to agency, the analysis is guided by Archer’s terms primary agency (which results from social rank), corporate agency (which results from social organisation) and social actorship (which results from the unification of personal identity with social roles). The research finds that chance and male sanctioning were present in these women’s involvement in translation, but that a strong exercise of agency was present which was personally motivated. Agency involved no organisation, however, and neither sought nor achieved social change. Yet, three of the four translators were able to achieve social actorship, whereby their role as translators was successfully united with their personal identity.

Demystifying the Work of South African Academic Advisors: An Exploration of Students’ Structural and Material Constraints

The structural and material factors affecting the lived realities and prospects of tertiary success for South African students are complex and manifold. Inexorably, these lived realities impact the work of academic advisors who guide and support students throughout their higher education journeys. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the growing body of literature about academic advising in and for South African higher education contexts, and in particular the daily work of academic advisors in the country. This is achieved by first drawing on literature to elucidate the various structural and material constraints affecting the lives of many South African students, before reconciling what emerges from the literature with quantitative data collected by an academic advisor working at a South African university about his engagements with students over a three-year period. This phenomenological study is underpinned by social realist principles as proposed by Margaret Archer and draws in particular on the notion of structure to advance its argument. Additionally, the work of Boughey and McKenna on the decontextualized learner is incorporated to demonstrate why students in this country cannot be decontextualized from their lived realities. The article concludes by highlighting how the complex structural and material constraints that influence students’ higher education experiences manifest in the day-to-day work of academic advisors. The authors propose that these insights be used to enhance responsiveness to student needs, while informing how the sector makes meaning of advising for the South African higher education context

Resentment Barriers to Innovation Development of Small and Medium Enterprises in Upper Silesia

The first aim of the article is to diagnose the barriers of agency (including resentment ones) that occur during the implementation of innovations in the selected Silesian small and medium-sized enterprises. The second goal is to explain how the structural and cultural resentment contexts and the type of reflexivity undertaken by the employees determine an innovative activity in the state of morphostasis (contextual continuity) and morphogenesis (contextual discontinuity) at selected companies. The theoretical basis of the research is Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic theory of structure and agency and her scheme of causal analysis. Based on this and using the qualitative analysis of data obtained during focus group interviews (FGI), a diagnosis is made regarding the presence of agency barriers in the innovation processes. A morphogenetic causal analysis of the emergence of agency barriers limiting the course of innovation processes in a business reality burdened with resentment contexts has been presented. On the theoretical and empirical level, the usefulness of the morphogenetic schema in the study of organizational behavior in small and medium enterprises was verified. Conducting diachronic causal analyzes among employees of selected SMEs made it possible to show the conditions between the scope of the existing resentment barriers (structural and cultural), the type of dominant reflexivity among their members, and the possibilities of innovation in these organizations. It has been shown that in organizational contexts burdened with group resentments, the agency of staff is mainly morphostatic. The dominant type of reflexivity (communicative, not autonomous) is focused on maintaining the existing contextual continuity and not on changing it. The results obtained from the research will allow the implementation of educational and implementation projects (research in action) in the future, adequate to the needs of the small and medium enterprise sector in terms of eliminating resentments in the structure and organizational culture. These aims will be implemented through the participation of external expert groups in the following areas of innovation of a given company: pro-innovative attitudes, competencies, processes, and strategies, perception of the environment, customer orientation, or branding.

Recognizing prior learning in vocational education and training: global ambitions and actual implementation in four countries

ABSTRACT This article contributes to a better theoretical understanding of the social processes underlying the development and implementation of schemes to improve the recognition of prior learning (RPL) in vocational education and training (VET). It traces the global diffusion of RPL, and then analyses the formulation of RPL policies and design and implementation of RPL schemes in four case study countries (Bangladesh, North-Macedonia, Sweden and Switzerland). The article draws on historical institutionalism and Margaret Archer's work on educational change to argue that the design and implementation of RPL schemes are strongly dependent on the status of VET qualifications in education systems and labour markets.

Structure, reflexivity and their interplay: understanding university faculty members’ implementation of teaching excellence

Against the backdrop of teaching being downplayed in higher education, this study unravels how the university faculty members’ implementation of teaching excellence is influenced by the interplay of objective structural conditionings and subjective internal deliberations, drawing upon Margaret Archer's social realist framework and her distinction between human reflexive modalities. By exploring 21 faculty members from three Chinese universities with different structural constraints and enablements, the study shows that dual modalities are manifest in all faculty members, among which meta-reflexivity applies to everyone. However, autonomous reflexivity and communicative reflexivity play more dominant roles in generating purposeful actions under the same structure. Furthermore, some structural forces are non-negotiable constraints, and people having the same reflexivity modality may act differently under different structural conditionings. The study calls for universities to cater to both structural arrangements and reflexive deliberations to transform constraints into enablements for teaching excellence.

Open Textbook Author Journeys: Internal Conversations and Cycles of Time

One of the challenges experienced in South African higher education (HE) is a lack of access to affordable, appropriate textbooks and other teaching materials that can be legally shared on online forums and the Internet. There are also increasing calls to address transformation and social justice globally and in South African HE through curriculum transformation. This article draws on the research of the Digital Open Textbooks for Development initiative at the University of Cape Town (UCT). It presents the journeys of four open textbook authors at UCT in relation to the social injustices they witness in their classrooms. It also makes use of Margaret Archer’s social realist approach to explore dynamics related to open textbook authors’ agency and ultimate concerns, as well as how their internal conversations shape their practices and approaches to open textbooks. Open textbooks are framed as a set of practices that play out in varying cycles of time and hold promise in terms of addressing the need for greater access and inclusivity in HE.

Academic advising during emergency remote teaching and learning: A South African higher education perspective

Academic advising remains an emerging profession and practice in the South African higher education sector, with an increase in evidence-informed literature about advising for this context in recent years. The disruptions brought by the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have been significant for academic advising. This paper posits that the pandemic has had a catalytic effect on advising, how it is perceived, and how it is practiced at the university where the author works, thus potentially setting the scene for change. By drawing on data generated through interviews with 15 academic advisors, the paper examines the likelihood of change (or morphogenesis). The examination is underpinned by Social Realist principles. Margaret Archer’s notions of structure, culture, and agency, as well as elements of her work on the morphogenetic cycle, guides the study. The focus is on the potential of advising and advisors within and for SA HE contexts. The academic advisors interviewed emerge as a previously under-valued and poorly utilised link among students, lecturers, and the broader institution. The paper concludes by elucidating how the work of academic advisors during the pandemic could bring about greater integration of advising with other dimensions of the academic project, while foregrounding the high-impact potential of advising for SA HE contexts.

How epistemic reflexivity enables teacher educators’ teaching for diversity: Exploring a pedagogical framework for critical thinking

AbstractRecent research points to the importance of teacher educators teaching for diversity in initial teacher education programmes. Teaching for diversity is an approach to teacher education in which an understanding of specialist literature and a focus on critical thinking supports a social justice agenda as opposed to merely using different tips and tricks to prepare future teachers for teaching diverse learners in the classroom. In this study, we explored how Australian and New Zealand teacher educators negotiated a social justice agenda in teacher education programmes, using a new transdisciplinary framework of epistemic reflexivity. The Epistemic Reflexivity for Teacher Education (ER‐TED) framework draws on epistemic cognition (Clark Chinn’s Aims, Ideals, Reliable epistemic processes – AIR – framework) and Margaret Archer’s reflexivity to explore knowledge claims in teacher educators’ pedagogical decision‐making. The findings identified how teacher educators in our study discerned and deliberated with respect to epistemic aims for justification, which involve transformative critical thinking and critical thinking for self. They reported good knowledge (ideals) as being scholarly in nature, and reliable epistemic processes based on higher‐order thinking (analysis and evaluating competing ideas) or engaging with multiple perspectives. The teacher educators in our study are clear examples of how strong overall evaluative epistemic stances enable teaching for social justice. We argue that the ER‐TED framework can help us as a profession to address teaching for diversity in teacher education programmes based on the belief that the pursuit of social justice requires an evaluativist epistemic stance.

Promoting the recognition of prior learning in the context of development cooperation: The case of Bangladesh

In view of the growing importance of the ‘recognition of prior learning’ (RPL) in educational development in lower- and middle-income countries, and of the dearth of research on this new trend, this article presents a study of vocational education and training (VET) in Bangladesh. It examines the evolution of RPL in this country in terms of causal factors and implementation challenges. Based on an analysis of policy documents, practices and qualitative interviews, we develop our argument around Margaret Archer’s model of morphogenetic educational change. The findings suggest that RPL in Bangladesh has grown in the context of considerable general growth in its educational system, but has not been caused by this. More important for RPL’s expansion has been its inclusion in what McGrath calls the “VET policy toolkit”, which donor agencies have started to actively promote in Bangladesh. At the same time, our reading shows that key actors in the development of the country’s VET system have resisted any alterations of the pathways to existing VET qualifications, as they continue to be of the view that access to established VET programmes should be limited to those who have passed eight years of formal schooling (even though many of these graduates still lack solid literacy and numeracy skills). The article argues that global-level actors might need to take such concerns more seriously.

“Are we making a quilt, with lots of ill-fitting cloths in here?”: Teachers’ internal conversations on curriculum making

Teachers exercising reflexivity through their internal conversations is one of the most important factors in the process of curriculum change. Drawing from Margaret Archer’s theory, this research explores teachers’ internal conversations in their own descriptions about a range of matters related to curriculum making. Eight secondary school teachers from different subject backgrounds (6 from Scotland and 2 from Wales) participated in the research. Findings suggest that although teachers may have similar concerns to produce internal conversations, the texture of the conversations, their standpoints, and how they project future actions differed. This variation can be partially explained by teachers exercising different modes of reflexivity in their unique circumstances. Findings suggest that a complex, nuanced and dynamic understanding of reflexivity is a salient feature to explain teachers’ stances towards curriculum, reasoning, decision-making and actions, which may help to understand curriculum change processes better.

Emergent consequences of narrating futures in energy transitions

The paper presents a general theoretical argument about narrating futures and demonstrates its validity on the topic of energy transitions. It goes beyond the perspective of social constructionism and analyzes the temporal relationship between narratives, as employed in social interactions, and the reality of structural conditions in societies. The first part combines the morphogenetic approach of Margaret Archer and the narrative hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur to conceptualize emergent consequences, clarifying the role of future-oriented narrative activity in generating these consequences and responding to them. The second part relates this theoretical framework to three modern energy transitions – the transition to coal, the post-World War II transition to nuclear power, and the contemporary transition to renewables – and shows how emergent consequences stimulate narratives of variant futures. The interlinking of interactions, narratives and structures offers a conceptual perspective suitable especially for research areas where consistent consideration of environmental, material or technological structures is indispensable.

Sport for Development and Transformative Social Change: The Potential of Margaret Archer’s Morphogenetic Approach to Reconceptualize a Long-Standing Problem

Frequent calls for sport for development (SFD) to be reoriented toward transformative social change reflect the extent that policies and programs have instead focused on individualized forms of personal development. However, SFD research has yet to substantially address fundamental ontological assumptions and underlying conceptualizations of transformative social change. To addresses this gap, this article considers how Margaret Archer’s Morphogenetic Approach can help explain how transformative social change might occur through SFD activities. Three conceptual contributions are brought into focus: (a) assuming a realist social ontology; (b) making distinctions between structure, culture, and agency; and (c) identifying social change as happening across three temporal phases. The authors conclude by identifying potential benefits and implications of applying the Morphogenetic Approach to consider the potential for SFD to contribute to social change.