«Трансформирующая агентность» как предмет социологического анализа: современные дискуссии и роль образования

Вестник Российского университета дружбы народов. Серия: Социология. 2021. Т. 21. № 1. С. 124–138.

Sorokin P. S.

Negative trends of the global social-economic development enhanced by the covid-19
pandemic explain the theoretical and practical relevance of the study of perspectives for structural
transformations and their possible sources. In education, this means the need to improve the existing
models of institutional practice and to contribute to the development of ‘agency’ that would support
positive transformations in all domains of social life. The scientific attention to ‘agency’ and its
transformative potential in relation to ‘structures’ is still limited compared to the issues of structures’
reproduction. The so-called ‘new institutionalists’ in sociology (including primarily J.W. Meyer and his
followers) provide a promising basis for new theoretical models and empirical studies of the content,
factors and effects of ‘transformative agency’. Meyer’s core idea is that social structures can both suppress
and support the initiative formation of new social entities and the corresponding new values and modes
of action. Further research in education should refer to the concepts of ‘institutional entrepreneurship’,
‘institutional work’ and ‘expanded actorhood’, when using the proposed theoretical framework to
empirically study (1) globally and nationally promoted initiatives in entrepreneurship education in
universities, and (2) processes of transformation of institutional contexts in education under the
continuing global pandemic with an emphasis on the proactive role of students.

Keywords: новый институционализм, new institutionalism, Institutional entrepreneurship, институциональное предпринимательство, transformative agency, тренды социально-экономического развития, трансформирующая агентность, structure-agency, trends of social-economic development, destructuration, institutional work, структура-действие, де-структурация, институциональная работа

Publication based on the results of: Entrepreneurship education in national higher education systems: causes, content and effects – comparative analysis and the special features of the Russian case (2021)