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Personal Agency (personal + agency)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	75%

Selected Abstracts

An exploratory study of the perceptions and experiences of further education amongst the young long-term unemployed

JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 5 2002
Bruce Bolam
Abstract The aim of this study was to explore, in depth, the perceptions and experiences of Further Education (FE) amongst the young long-term unemployed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 long-term unemployed youths of 18,25 years of age divided into three groups: those with no experience of FE; those having recently dropped out of FE; and those currently studying in FE. Grounded theoretical analysis highlighted the importance of both responses to and institutional aspects of unemployment. The impact of unemployment, poor previous educational experience and perceived irrelevance of FE are key barriers to learning. Those that enter FE may drop out as a result of both material and psychosocial factors. Those that stay on commonly emphasize both social support and personal agency in decision-making alongside positive evaluations of FE. In conclusion, limitations of the findings, policy and practical recommendations for successful widening of participation in FE amongst this group are considered. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Discourses of the soul: The negotiation of personal agency in Tzotzil Maya dream narrative

AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 4 2009
KEVIN P. GROARK
ABSTRACT In this article, I examine the framing of personal agency in Tzotzil Maya dream narrative. Drawing on contemporary linguistic, psychodynamic, and phenomenological approaches, I focus on the lexical and semantic resources typical of highland Maya dream talk, illustrating the way these resources can be used to pragmatically negotiate questions of volition and authorial responsibility in relation to dream experience. By locating experience at a distance from the speaker, this framing provides an expressive resource for managing,mitigating, diffusing, or even disclaiming,agentic responsibility for described events or experiences, particularly those with significant implications for social status or self-definition. I close with reflections on the interpretive potential of an integrative "cultural psychodynamic" approach, one that draws on discourse-analytic, ethnographic, and psychoanalytic methods and theories in the service of understanding complex cultural subjectivities. [source]

Autonomy, Interdependence, and Assisted Suicide: Respecting Boundaries/Crossing Lines

BIOETHICS, Issue 3 2000
Anne Donchin
Western philosophy has been powerfully influenced by a paradigm of personal agency that is linked to an individualistic conception of autonomy. This essay contrasts this conception with an alternative understanding that recognizes a social component built into the very meaning of autonomy. After reviewing feminist critiques of the dominant conception of autonomy, I develop the broad outlines of a relational view and apply this reconceptualization to a concrete situation in order to show how this altered view reconfigures understanding of the participants' relationships and each of their personal perspectives. The situation chosen, physician-assisted suicide, is intended principally to illustrate one respect in which a relational conception of autonomy reframes a controversial moral issue and reveals perspectives toward it that are likely to be obscured when autonomy is viewed through the lens of the dominant individualistic conception. My principal aim is to show that when autonomy is understood relationally, respecting others' autonomy is likely to be a far more complex issue than is apparent within the standard conception, both for those with professional responsibilities and often for personal intimates as well. [source]