Introduction

Abstract

Margaret Archer’s statement well sums up the purpose of this book. Its aim is to move social theory into the daylight, so that it can be used with profit by nursing practitioners, students and researchers. In other words, I hope to show in as clear terms as possible how the ‘vexing beast⁵ of society impinges upon the practice of nursing and how an understanding of social theory will enable nurses to explore systematically the ways in which it impinges. However, such a bald statement begs a number of important questions. Before going any further, I feel I should answer five that strike me as particularly pertinent.

Social theory has to be useful and useable; it is not an end in itself. The vexatious fact of society has to be tackled in theory for practice. These two tasks cannot be separated, for were practical utility to be the sole criterion we would commit ourselves to instrumentalism — to working with theoretically ungrounded rules of thumb. Conversely, a purely theoretical taming of the vexing beast may give a warm inner glow of ontological rectitude but is cold comfort to practical social analysts. They want a user-friendly tool kit and although it cannot come pocket-sized, customer services have every right to complain when handed an unwieldy device without any instructions on the assumption that if they handle it sufficiently this will somehow sensitize them to something.

(Archer 1995: 135)