MARGARET SCOTFORD ARCHER

Date of Birth: 20 January 1943 Place: Grenoside (UK) Nomination: 19 January 1994 Field: Sociology Title: Professor

Institute Address:
University of Warwick, Department of Sociology, Coventry CV4 7AL, Warwickshire (UK)

Most important awards, prizes and academies PhD London School of Economics, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, University of Cambridge, University of Reading, University of Warwick; President of the International Sociological Association 1986-90; Editor of Current Sociology, the Journal of the International Sociological Association, 1972-80; Member of the Amalfi Scientific Prize Committee; Member of the Academia Europaea; Member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and Councillor (1994-Oct 2009). One of the main speakers at the "IV Convegno Ecclesiale Nazionale", organized by CEI, Verona 2006; Speaker in the "Hacia un consenso multilateral solidario" Conference, Chile 2008.
Summary of scientific research My research is in the area of philosophy of social science. It has fundamentally been concerned with the "problem of structure and agency", that is with justifying these as irreducible entities with their own emergent properties and powers. From that follows the question of how to theorise the interplay between society, culture, structure and its human agents and to explain how their interaction leads to an elaboration of all three elements. To this end, I have developed the "morphogenetic approach" within social theory. These issues first emerged in my Social Origins of Educational Systems (Sage, London, 1979). However, they are most fully explored in my trilogy of books, which deal sequentially with culture, structure and agency: Culture and Agency, 1988, Realist Social Theory, 1995, and Being Human: the Problem of Agency, 2000. All of these are published by Cambridge University Press. I am working on the manner in which human reflexivity serves to mediate between our personal concerns and our structural conditioning as the next stage in the above project. The first of a new trilogy of books, Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation, was published again with CUP. I now have a large grant with which to pursue the processes of the making and breaking of human reflexivity, with parallel projects being conducted in other countries.
Main publications Besides 60 articles and chapters published between 1965-2004, her principal books are: Social Conflict and Educational Change in England and France: 1789-1848 (with M. Vaughan), Cambridge University Press, 1971; Contemporary Europe: Class, Status and Power (ed. jointly with Salvador Giner and joint Introduction), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1971, and St Martin's Press, New York, 1971; Students, University and Society (edited, Introduction and Ch. on France), Heinemann, London 1972; Contemporary Europe: Social Structures and Cultural Patterns (ed. jointly with Salvador Giner), Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1978. Including "The Theoretical and Comparative Analysis of Social Structure", pp. 1-27; Social Origins of Educational Systems, Sage, London and Beverly Hills, 1979; The Sociology of Educational Expansion: Take-Off, Growth and Inflation in Educational Systems (ed.) Sage, London and Beverly Hills, 1982. Including "Introduction: Theorising about the expansion of educational systems", pp. 3-64; Social Origins of Educational Systems (University Text), Sage, London and Beverly Hills, 1984; Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1988; Realist Social Theory: the Morphogenetic Approach, Cambridge University Press, 1995; Being Human: The Problem of Agency, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000; Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003; Transcendence: Critical Realism and God (co-authored with Andrew Collier and Douglas V. Porpora), Routledge, London, 2004; Making our Way through the World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007; Conversations about Reflexivity (edited), Routledge, Abingdon, 2010.