Individui e scelte: un esame critico di alcuni concetti dell'analisi sociologica contemporanea

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA E POLITICHE SOCIALI
Author/s Julia Brannen, Ann Nilsen
Publishing Year 2007 Issue 2007/2
Language Italian Pages 19 P. 77-95 File size 107 KB
DOI
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Individualisation and choice: A critical examination of some current concepts in sociological analysis ABSTRACT: In this paper, the authors seek to explore a tendency in current sociological thought to highlight notions of choice and autonomy in writings about contemporary Western societies. Their purpose is to demonstrate how empirical research is able to provide other ways of theorising than the individualisation one. It’s essential that the research takes account of the complexity and diversity of people’s lives through the lens of the agency-structure dynamic and the relationship between biography and history. Brannen and Nilsen wish to draw attention to some of the consequences of leaving out discussions of the structural aspects of societies and people’s lives, for individuals as well as for the development and application of sociological theory and its ability to understand the connection between history and individual biography. For the authors, the domination of the concept of individualisation in sociological theory causes many misunderstandings because to ignore the structure is to ignore the possibility of inequalities and differences in resources which are systemic and systematic rather than individual and random. It’s to say, the individualisation theory emphasises the agency side of the classical sociological dynamic the individual and society link and downplays structure. Consequently, discussing about how people construct their life course trajectories, how they make choices, the individualisation route stresses the individual agency power without arguing the structure conditions. The discussion is based on qualitative research that the authors have conducted in recent years, and draws on focus groups with young people in Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, Ireland and Portugal. From this critique, the two authors seek to demonstrate how concepts that take account of context and structure as well individual subjectivities can create a better ‘fit’ with complex and diverse realties.

Julia Brannen, Ann Nilsen, Individui e scelte: un esame critico di alcuni concetti dell'analisi sociologica contemporanea in "SOCIOLOGIA E POLITICHE SOCIALI" 2/2007, pp 77-95, DOI: