Making Social Life:  Theories of Action and Meaning
Chapter 18  Key Themes

• Reflexivity is used to denote the way that individual actors can reflect on their actions and knowledge to shape their future actions and thoughts. We first discussed the concept in Chapter 1 but it is central to the interactionist approach and can be seen empirically, for example, in Chapter 10 'Education'.
  
• Action is the capacity to do something with purpose. One of the most important sociological concepts in sociology, it usually implies social action, that is, action in relation to others. To see how the processes of globalisation have changed the context within which action can occur, see Chapter 3 'Globalisation and Modernity'.
  
• Discourse is used as a shorthand for related statements or 'bits of knowledge' that frame the way that we think and act, by defining what is or is not possible in particular circumstances. The concept is most closely associated with Foucault (see Chapter 19 'Modernity, Postmodernity and Social Theory') but you can read about discourses in a substantive area in Chapter 13 'Health, Illness and Medicine'.