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Dissertation Information for Paul Nesbitt-Larking

NAME:
- Paul Nesbitt-Larking

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Political Science

SCHOOL:
- Carleton University (Canada) (1991)

ADVISORS:
- None

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: A structurationist analysis of the class character of state professional employees in Canada

Abstract: "Principles of structuration theory are applied to the problem of analysing the class character of State Professional Employees.

Existing analyses of the class character of State Professional Employees are considered. Structuralist approaches are found to overlook or downplay the contingency and openness of agency, culture and consciousness. Voluntarist approaches are criticised for insufficient attention to the conditioning effects of the unacknowledged conditions and unanticipated consequences of class action. Elements of both approaches are also found to be deterministic, functionalist, teleological and prone to the attribution of fixed class characteristics.

State Professional Employees are particularly resistant to investigation because they have been occupants of ambivalent and contradictory class locations. Structuration theory provides a basis for exploring their class characteristics. It abandons the dualism of structure versus agency and combines the best elements of both tendencies in an integrative approach. Through the double hermeneutic, structuration theory facilitates the open exploration of class ambivalence in a manner which privileges neither the conceptual understandings of the researcher nor those of lay actors.

A particular methodological application of the double hermeneutic is undertaken through the empirical study of School teachers in Ottawa-Carleton. Class consciousness is adopted as the basis for this investigation.

The researcher-based element of the double hermeneutic consists of the contextualised historical and empirical study of the class-related experiences and actions of teachers in post-war Canada and, specifically, Ontario. A particular range of class consciousnesses, from Possessive Individualism to Solidaristic Collectivism, is distilled from this investigation.

Operationalising these elements of class consciousness gives rise to a questionnaire which is administered to a group of teachers in Ottawa-Carleton. Their responses constitute the other half of the double hermeneutic, complementing, vivifying and amending the initial conceptualisations. Specifically, the anticipated class ambivalence, instrumentalism and fragmentation of teachers is generally supported, even though certain counterfactual findings would require further interchange for the attainment of a more refined hermeneutic."

MPACT Scores for Paul Nesbitt-Larking

A = 0
C = 1
A+C = 1
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:33:10

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