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Structural Approaches
Book chapter

Structural Approaches

Douglas V. Porpora
The Oxford Handbook of Social Ontology, pp 319-334
20 Oct 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197565124.003.0017
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Abstract

History & Surveys Social Social and Political Philosophy Social Theory Epistemology Metaphysics Philosophy
Indigenous to the social sciences and until recently largely ignored by philosophers, social structure remains a contested concept. This entry first distinguishes structure from its correlative concepts of culture and agency and then presents a critical history of the different meanings the social sciences have and currently do attach to social structure. An early sociological holist view, inspired by Durkheim, equated structure with lawlike relations among social facts residing over the heads of individual actors. This conception is no longer widely held. Instead, a more interactionist or micro-foundationalist view prevails identifying structure with stable patterns of individual behavior. On this perspective, social structure ceases to be explanatory and becomes instead exclusively an epiphenomenal effect. For a third perspective, associated with Marx and Bourdieu, social structure refers to situating relations among social positions and social constructs that comprise not behavior but social circumstances in which actors find themselves. Finally, there is a view associated with Giddens and Ortner that understands social structure as practices that partake of cultural rules and schemas.

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