Social Constructionist Issues - Essay Example

Social Constructionist Social constructionism is a growing movement in the human sciences and humanities (Berger and Luckman, 1966; Gergen, 1985). It is a fundamentally new and really rather strange nature is, however, easily misunderstood. For, rather than simply proposing yet another new theory within the methodological framework of contemporary academic psychology, its aim is quite different: as Rorty (1989) puts it, by the introduction of whole new 'vocabularies,' whole new ways of talking, its aim is 'to change the subject'; or, as Billig et al (1988) put it, 'to change the agenda of argumentation' (Shotter, 1997). Social constructionism is a sociological theory of knowledge developed by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann with their 1966 book, The Social Construction of Reality. The focus of social constructionism is to understand the ways in which individuals and groups are involved in the creation of their perceived reality. As an approach, it involves looking at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalised, and made into tradition by humans (Social constructionism, 2006). Interest in the family of ideas loosely labeled "social constructionist" has burgeoned within recent years, and now spans the full range of the social sciences and humanities. Constructionist scholarship has been devoted to understanding the generation, transformation, and suppression of what we take to be objective knowledge; exploring the literary and rhetorical devices by which meaning is achieved and rendered convincing; illuminating the ideological and valuational freighting of the unremarkable or taken for granted; documenting the implications of world construction for the distribution of power; gaining an appreciation of the processes of relationship from which senses of the real and the good are achieved; understanding the historical roots of various forms of understanding; and exploring the variables in human intelligibility across cultures (Gergen, 1997). An illustrative example of social constructionist thought at work is, following the work of Sigmund Freud and mile Durkheim, religion. According to this theory, the basis for religion is rooted in man's psyche, in a need to see some purpose in life. A given religion, then, does not show us some hidden aspect of objective reality, but has rather been constructed according to social and historical processes according to human need (Social constructionism, 2006). Social constructionism can not be considered as an explanatory theory, but rather as an epistemology, in the sense of a philosophy of knowledge. Social constructionism is more about a philosophical, contemplative vision, more than a concrete, applicable theory. No ready-made answers, which is the reason for this exercise in thought (Gergen, 1994). The concept of 'construct' Social constructionism emphasises the construction man make of reality. People make stories, ideas and theories to help them deal with reality. Man's knowledge never objectively reflects the external reality. It is always a creation that contains our own experiences, perceptions and values (Gergen, 1994). The concept 'social' Social constructionism claims that the constructs man make of the world around him can only be made through interaction with others. Knowledge only exists when it is shared with another person. Constructs are shared stories that enable people to function as a group in a larger whole. Social constructionism emphasises that these constructs are practical; they must be useful in everyday life. That is why man can consider them as agreements made within a community to create a livable environment. The importance of culture and history should be underlined (Gergen, 1994). Socially constructed reality is seen as a continuing, vibrant process; reality is re-produced by people acting on their interpretations and their knowledge of it. Berger and Luckmann argue that all knowledge, including the most basic, taken-for-granted common sense knowledge of everyday reality, is derived from and maintained by social interactions. When people interact, they do so with the understanding that their respective perceptions of reality are related, and as they act upon this understanding their common knowledge of reality becomes reinforced. Since this common sense knowledge is negotiated by people, human typifications, significations and institutions come to be presented as part of an objective reality. It is in this sense that it can be said that reality is socially constructed. Social constructionism is dialectically opposed to essentialism, the belief that there are defining transhistorical essences independent of conscious beings that determine the categorical structure of reality (Social constructionism, 2006). Within social constructionist thought, a social construction, or social construct, is an idea which may appear to be natural and obvious to those who accept it, but in reality is an invention or artifact of a particular culture or society. The implication is that social constructs are in some sense human choices rather than laws resulting from divine will or nature. This is not usually taken to imply a radical anti-determinism, however (Social constructionism, 2006). The role of language Like many other epistemologies, social constructionism gives language an establishing role (Gergen, 1994). Language cannot be considered as a direct representation of the world outside language. Processes of representation reflect the social world, not a mental one. In other words: words and statements become meaningful only in relation with other words and statements, language itself is an agreement. It is an instrument created by humans, with a specific use and no meaning outside the context of this use (Gergen, 1994; Katerina et al, 2004). Social constructionism focuses on the creation of meaning, on the existence, the development and the role of joint meaning. Gergen, an important author with regard to social constructionism, summarizes: "It is human interchange that gives language its capacity to mean and it must stand as the critical locus of concern" (Gergen, 1994). One of the most important criticisms on social constructionism (and on the basic notion of postmodernism) is that this way of looking at the world leads to nihilism and relativism. After all, if every story and every view of the world is equally meaningful, there is a danger of ending up in a radical individualism where 'anything goes'. Everybody would be able to justify his behaviour and ideas simply by referring to the individuality of knowledge. Gergen stresses the importance of unity as a central concept for a society. According to him, shared negotiated knowledge is the basis for the development of shared values and standards and for a renewed emphasis on interaction and combined action. Because there is not one single truth, man's choices have to be based on values. Man has to take responsibility for the statements he make and the actions he take (Katerina et al, 2004). Learning about identity Man understands learning as the process of knowledge construction within a social and affective context. Constructionism argue that people are likely to create new ideas when they are actively engaged in making external artifacts that they can reflect upon and share with others (Papert, 1980). Thus, knowledge is by no means the result of an inert activity of receiving information, but of a lively interaction with the world through handling of artifacts and interactions with people. The term learning can be applied to both humans and machines. The difference is on the self-awareness or self-consciousness recursive loop. Computers might be able to perform better if they are capable of learning about their own mechanisms or identity. However, for humans, learning about their own identity is not only associated with successful performance but also with the raising of existential question (Bers and Bergman, n.d.). The social construction of man's inner lives Social constructionism has anything to say about the inner, psychic lives of individuals - about their feelings or experiences, about their thoughts and thinking, or about those inner moments when, all alone, man try to make sense of his life. Such an assumption would, however, it opens up the inner psychic lives of western individuals to forms of conversational investigation never before (because of their supposed bounded, self-contained nature) thought possible. Even more, it reveals some quite extraordinary, very surprising, otherwise unnoticed features of our 'inner' lives: for instance, that what some inner thing 'is' for us, is revealed, not in how we talk about it when reflecting upon it, but in how 'it' necessarily 'shapes' those of our everyday communicative activities in which it is involved, in practice; and that as such, 'it' has an emergent nature of a situated, socially constructed, and thus incomplete, precarious, and contested kind - 'it' has its being in the 'movement' of our voices as we speak our words. In short: the 'things' supposedly in our 'inner' lives are not to be found within us as individuals, but 'in' the momentary relational spaces occurring between ourselves and an other or otherness in our surroundings. Where they are, or it is, just as much an influence in shaping what occurs there as we ourselves, as we live out our lives in interaction with our surroundings. In other words, the contents of our 'inner' lives are not so much 'inside' man as individuals, as 'in' man living of his life, and as such, they are all related to each other internally (as philosophers say). Yet, this gives rise to the strange consequence that, 'the processes that basically define the content of the psyche occur not inside but outside the individual organism, although they involve its participation' (Volosinov, 1973; Shooter, 1997). Human Sexuality Social constructionist thinking about sexual behaviour has its beginnings in the ideas of the renowned French philosopher Michel Foucault (1978). Foucault saw societies as constructing "sexual regimes" - entire complexes of sexual attitudes, values, and practices - that were infused with politics. He urged us to deconstruct these regimes so that we could see them for what they are. Some of the most prominent recent social constructionist/postmodern theorists of human sexuality are Steven Seidman (1994a, 1994b, 1996), Jeffrey Weeks (1986), and Adrienne Rich (1980). These thinkers are opposed to "essentialism," or the notion that sexuality is part of our biological nature and that there are certain universal types of it. Seidman tells us that sex is social and that this inevitably makes it political. He says that "which sensations or acts are defined as sexual, what moral boundaries demarcate legitimate and illegitimate sex, and who stipulates this are political. Paralleling class or gender politics, sexual politics involve struggles around the formation of, and resistance to, a sexual social hierarchy" (1994a:166; Sanderson, 2003). Jeffrey Weeks (1986) holds that sexuality is not biologically given but is produced by society through webs of social interaction and definition. Sexual orientation and behavior are social rather than biological products. Heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality are socially rather than biologically determined. The role of biology is mainly limited to providing potentialities and setting limits.The most recent form of social constructionist/postmodernist thinking about sexuality is what is infelicitously known as queer theory, which has come to be extremely influential. It emerged in the late 1980s in several Ivy League universities and has taken particularly strong hold in these and other highly prestigious universities (Stein and Plummer, 1994; Sanderson, 2003). Conclusion From within social constructionism, everything that is taken to be an already existing, real psychology object in the cognitive (realist) account - such as man's intentions, memories, motives, perceptions, emotions, etc. - can be talked of in a different way: As not consisting in already finished and finalized objective entities at all, but as still being in the process of construction, that is, as being both partially constructed and open to further construction, or even, re-construction - in different ways in different discursive or conversational circumstances, according to one's sense of how one is placed in relation, both to one's own project, and to the others around one. It is only through the semiotic mediation of signs, within an inner conversational process, that what man talk of as his 'self', his 'psyche', or his 'mind', comes into existence at all, but that 'the reality of the inner psyche is the same reality as that of the sign' (Volosinov, 1973) - in other words, 'minds', 'selves', or 'psyches' exist as such, only within our embodied discursive practices (Shooter, 1997). Reference List Bers, Marina Umaschi and Rabbi Sergio Bergman. (n.d.). A constructionist perspective on values: a response to postmodern fragmented identity. Available from: [10 Dec. 2006]. Billig, M. et al (1988) Ideological Dilemmas. London: Sage. Berger, P. and Luckman, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday and Co. Foucault, Michel. (1978). The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Random House (Vintage). Gergen, K.J, (1985) The social constructionist movement in modern psychology. American Psychologist, 40, 266-275. Gergen, K. (1994) Realities and relationships: soundings in social construction, Cambridge: University Press. Gergen, Kenneth J. (1997). The Place of the Psyche in a Constructed World. Draft copy for Theory and Psychology. Available from: [10 Dec. 2006]. Katerin, De Koster, Devis Isabel, Flament Ida, and Loots Gerrit. (2004). Two practices, one perspective, many constructs: on the implications of social constructionism on scientific research and therapy. Brief Strategic and Systemic Therapy European Review N. 1. Availablefrom: Read More