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In social science, agency is the capacity of individuals to have the power and resources to fulfill their potential. Social structure consists of those factors of influence (such as social class, religion, gender, ethnicity, ability, customs, etc.) that determine or limit agents and their decisions. [ 1 ]
In the social sciences there is a standing debate over the primacy of structure or agency in shaping human behaviour. Structure is the recurrent patterned arrangements which influence or limit the choices and opportunities available. [1] Agency is the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. [1]
Agency (psychology), the ability to recognize or attribute agency in humans and non-human animals; Agency (sociology), the ability of social actors to make independent choices, relating to action theory in sociology; Agency and structure, ability of an individual to organize future situations and resource distribution
Agency is the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment. It is independent of the moral dimension, which is called moral agency. In sociology, an agent is an individual engaging with the social structure. Notably, though, the primacy of social structure vs. individual capacity with regard to persons' actions is debated within sociology.
Functionalist thought, from Comte onwards, has looked particularly towards biology as the science providing the closest and most compatible model for social science. Biology has been taken to provide a guide to conceptualizing the structure and the function of social systems and to analyzing processes of evolution via mechanisms of adaptation.
"Sociobiology is now part of the core research and curriculum of virtually all biology departments, and it is a foundation of the work of almost all field biologists. " Sociobiological research on nonhuman organisms has increased dramatically and continuously in the world's top scientific journals such as Nature and Science .
The concept of agency implies an active organism, one who desires, makes plans, and carries out actions. [5] The sense of agency plays a pivotal role in cognitive development, including the first stage of self-awareness (or pre-theoretical experience of one's own mentality), which scaffolds theory of mind capacities.
The most influential attempts to combine the concept of social structure with agency are Anthony Giddens' theory of structuration and Pierre Bourdieu's practice theory. Giddens emphasizes the duality of structure and agency, in the sense that structures and agency cannot be conceived apart from one another.