Reconceptualizing agency within the life course: The power of looking ahead

Abstract

Empirical treatments of agency have not caught up with theoretical explication; empirical projects almost always focus on concurrent beliefs about one's ability to act successfully without sufficiently attending to temporality. We suggest that understanding the modern life course necessitates a multidimensional understanding of subjective agency involving a) perceived capacities and b) perceived life-chances, or expectations about what life holds in store. We also suggest that a proper understanding of agency's potential power within a life course necessitates moving beyond the domain-specific expectations more typical of past sociological work. Utilizing the Youth Development Study (YDS), we employ a scale of general life expectations in adolescence to explore the potential influence of a general sense of optimistic life-expectations in addition to the traditional agency-as-efficacy approach on a range of important outcomes.We can't be content with knowing what kind of people we are; it matters, too, what kind of people we hope to be. -(Appiah 2008 p. 72) For a number of years, the core sociological concern of linking macro-structures to individual actions has taken the form of a particular theoretical debate over the relative merits of agency vs. structure, a debate with important ramifications for understanding the nature of social stratification and life course pathways. A general consensus coheres around the idea that individual action is circumscribed by structural constraints at the same time that structural forces fundamentally constitute the selves of individual actors (e.g

The Role of Agency in Shaping the Educational Journeys of Care‐experienced Adults: Insights from a Life Course Study of Education and Care

“…The ‘negative’ expressions of agency observed in the data are noteworthy in the context of some authors arguing that Western conceptualisation of agency focus excessively on positive agency thereby ‘obscuring distinctly anti‐social agentic action’ (Alexander, ; Hitlin and Kirkpatrick Johnson, ). These ‘negative’ agentic actions point to an important aspect of agency that is visible in the data and arguably requires more attention in discussions regarding agency, education and care.…”

“…The principle of human agency has a long tradition in psychology with literature in this area generally focusing on individual concepts such as self‐efficacy, control and self‐regulation (Crockett, ; Hitlin and Kirkpatrick Johnson, ). While the psychological literature on agency has provided many insights into those processes that underlie agency, the focus has been on the individual, with little consideration given to the environment in which agency is enacted (Crockett, ).…”

Research in and Prospects for the Measurement of Health Using Self-Rated Health

“…These are often invoked as sources of methodological artifacts in subjective ratings, although some studies examine the association between personality characteristics and concurrent or subsequent SRH as a substantive research question (Benyamini, Leventhal, and Leventhal 1999;AikenMorgan et al 2014;Letzring, Edmonds, and Hampson 2014;Ryff, Radler, and Friedman 2015). Also included in the model are one's self-concept of health, which includes enduring and established beliefs about one's health identity (Idler 1994;Sehulster 1994;Schaeffer 2000;Bailis, Segall, and Chipperfield 2003;Lee 2014;Brenner and DeLamater 2016); one's expectations about the future, which can refer to life chances in general or expectations about health in particular (Sehulster 1994;Hitlin, Erickson, and Brown 2015;Hitlin and Johnson 2015); and other psychological factors that may affect respondents' performance in the survey interview, such as their mood, motivation to complete the task, or interest in the survey. The model also includes factors that may be considered the respondent's health factors, such as mental health and perceived stress; here, the model demonstrates that some factors do not fit neatly within just one dimension.…”

Fashioning Futures: Life Coaching and the Self‐Made Identity Paradox

“…They contribute to a decision‐oriented internal conversation (Archer ). For example, if the imaginary field of my future self‐image includes becoming a parent, this desired future identity clarifies my course, infuses me with feelings (of hope or frustration perhaps), and may influence significantly the choices that I make (Hitlin and Johnson ; Markus and Nurius ).…”