Education as a Source for Transformative Agency: Theoretical and Practical Issues

Abstract

The issue of “transformative agency”, which proactively improves and transforms social structures, is relevant both for theoretical discussions and practical agenda. The field of education is of particular importance in terms of shaping the potential for agency. However, the dominant areas of research in education, including the sociology of education, focus, on the contrary, on the mechanisms and factors of reproduction of social structures and related activities. The authors propose to expand the research agenda by increasing attention to the conditions and mechanisms of the formation of “transformative agency” at different levels of education and in its various segments, with an account of the processes of de-structuration that weaken the forms of institutional coercion familiar to the 20th century. The article raises theoretical questions and suggests relevant empirical phenomena for further research.