Looking through the lens of gender, this article engages with the opportunities, dilemmas and challenges posed by Sen’s framework to sociological research. Sen’s capability approach offers sociological research a dynamic framework through its concept of agency and its multidimensional approach. It also poses dilemmas, revealed in the tensions within agency and choice and the challenges in operationalizing Sen’s framework: adapting it to sociological models and applying it to empirically grounded research. Through conversion factors and processes, a central component in the capabilities approach, I reveal the potential of Sen’s approach for developing more dynamic frameworks in sociological research, with respect to (1) changes in gendered norms (how new norms are seeded); (2) how entitlements are converted into a sense of entitlement to make claims; and (3) how the capabilities approach can lead toward a more dynamic institutional analysis of welfare states. My contribution to Sen’s framework involves elaborating two mechanisms in the conversion of capabilities to agency freedoms and achievements: the sense of entitlement to make claims and the perceived scope of alternatives in exercising rights.
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