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Learning Objectives
In this chapter, you will learn:
- How rationality enables and constrains action
- How individuals may overcome the constraining nature of social structures
- How rationality and power interact
This chapter explores how rationality works as a social structure to enable and constrain actions. It then explores how people can overcome their constraining effects. Then, this chapter presents a discussion of how rationality and power interact.
In the critical realist framework, social structures are forces in social settings that enable or constrain the actions people can take.