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The demarcation criterion of methodological individualism is not defined in relation to entities ultimately involved in explanation – individuals to the exclusion of structures – as supposed by its reductionist interpretations. It introduces an epistemological approach that distinguishes between causal powers representing driving forces – they arise from individual (trans-situational) rational capacities – and structural properties which do not exert a causal power but have nevertheless a crucial causal role – they define the situational properties on the basis of which individuals’ rational capacities are developed. Whereas the forces in action in society are governed by the subjective meaning of/the reasons for individual actions, social structures have an explanatory or causal role insofar as they affect the subjective meaning of/the reasons for individual actions.

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To explain the inequalities in access to a discrete good G across two populations, or across time in a single national context, it is necessary to distinguish, for each population or period of time, the effect of the diffusion of G from that of unequal outcomes of underlying micro-social processes. The inequality of outcomes of these micro-social processes is termed inequality within the selection process. We present an innovative index of measurement that captures variations in this aspect of inequality of opportunity and is insensitive to margins. We applied this index to the analysis of inequality of educational opportunity by exploring the effects of the British 1944 Education Act, of which various accounts have been offered. The relationships between the measure of inequality within a selection process presented and classical measures of inequality of opportunity are analyzed, as well as the benefits of using this index with regard to the insight it provides for interpreting data.

The explanatory power of structures in analytical sociologists’ agent-based models brings into question methodological individualism. We defend that (a) from an explanatory point of view, the syntactic properties of models require semantic conditions of interpretation drawn from a conceptual research framework; (b) in such a framework, social/relational structures have only partial, explanatory power (counterfactual); and (c) taking the explanation further through generative mechanism modeling necessitates calling upon methodological individualism’s generic framework of interpretation that relies on social actors’ rational capacity. According to this interpretive framework, forces in action in society are governed by the subjective meaning of/the reasons for individual actions.

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In view of the strong influence of Dewey's thinking on contemporary educational thought, looking back over his epistemological conceptions is of crucial importance. The heart of Dewey's theory of knowing rests on a fundamental postulate derived from his naturalistic interpretation of human cognitive development: that of the functional separation, in the understanding of meaning, between observed or experienced phenomena and theoretical constructs. This postulate underpins Dewey's agreement with operationalism, his critique of the spectator theory of knowledge and his conception of causality as a sequential order. If this postulate is disproven, the principles relating to intellectual training that are derived from Dewey's theory of knowing collapse.1. Because knowledge in Dewey is an ongoing process involving an active subject, I use the notion of "theory of knowing" rather than that of "theory of knowledge", considering also the fact that he was highly critical of the philosophical legacy in terms of "epistemology" and "theory of knowledge".