Socializing efficacy: a reconstruction of self-efficacy theory within the context of inequality<FNR>*</FNR><FN>This paper is dedicated to the memory of sociologist, Dr Michael Moore, who died on 17 June 1998, one year after our intense work on this project. I am deeply indebted to him for his energy, support and wisdom. His ideas live on through this work. </FN>

Bandura's self-efficacy (SE) theory claims that if people believe that they can control the outcome of their behaviour, then they can. SE theory positions the self as the centre and originator of change, beginning with control over belief systems, which determine levels of performance. This conception depoliticizes social mechanisms of control, internalizing them within individual cognitive processes. We argue that SE theory emanates from culturally-positioned and ideologically informed functional trends in US psychology, which perpetuates a blaming-the-victim approach to social problems. Through an examination of the way gender and disability are manipulated in SE research, we show that efficacy is socially construed, and is actually about control over and access to power and the ideological, institutional, and social resources that provide the foundation for taking certain actions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]