The Methodology of Social Construction on the Educational Underachievement and Racial Issues - Essay Example

The Methodology of Social Construction on the Educational Underachievement and Racial Issues in United Kingdom The Methodologyof Social Construction on the Educational Underachievement and Racial Issues in United Kingdom Education has been considered as a very important thing for everybody. It has even been considered as a human right and not just a privilege. Many campaigns have been done to promote education and eradicate illiteracy. Despite of those efforts, there are still some places where people are uneducated. Slam areas and poor nations have problems with their education as they cannot sustain a system that can produce educated people. Because of it, they have other problems like lack of jobs, low economic performance, lack of food supply, hunger, malnutrition, high level of crimes and many more. It may even produce racial issues (Noll 2008). When it comes to race, each group of people may have similar features because they come from one place. Skin colour, eye colour, hair colour, body built, height and many more affect the appearance of people which may dictate the race that they belong to. Sometimes such differences produce inequalities and discriminations in the society. Some may say that those are unavoidable (Noll 2008). Some social experts may contend that it is innate to mankind to have a sense of discrimination as he categorizes things. It may race an issue since humans are not things that should be look down upon and discriminate. As a solution, some may suggest to look at each person in a new perspective and understand that each human being is unique (Lentz and Gower 2011). There should be no point for discrimination and recognize the talents and rights of every person. Other than education and racial discrimination, there are also other problems that exist in the society. It would take a lot of words to mention those problems so the paper would just concentrate on the two aforementioned issues and analyse them using the methodology of social construction. In particular, those issues to be analysed would be limited to the country called United Kingdom. Before going deeper into the issues in United Kingdom, it would help if the methodology of social construction is discussed first. It would provide a better understanding for the readers and appreciate how important social construction is in analysing the issues in education and race. From the perspective of philosophy, social construction pertains to the knowledge being created by the mass of people. It dictates what reality is which is perceived by each person. If it is brought to the extreme, it negates the concept of objective reality since the reality concept is dictated upon by the groups of people. A more formal definition of social construction may take the form of social theories which tackle the subject of knowledge as being created by the society. The consciousness of the society dictates which one is real and which one is not. It is like being dictated by convention. It means that reality is synthetic or product of the collective human mind. It may go against objectiveness because the perception in an object or concept depends upon the variables that are attached to the social perspective of people instead of connecting its meaning to its innate qualities (Burr, 1995, p. 4; Noll 2008) To explain the concept of social construction in detail, a focus on the human choices must be provided. Since there is a factor of subjectivity, human choices become the driving force in placing meaning on things. In particular, the efforts would be on the collective human choices. It is different from concepts or meanings created by divine intervention and human judgment. Although it is synthetic, it is not created by anti-determinism. Usually social constructionism goes on the opposite side of essentialism. The latter pertains to the natural terms and meanings of things instead of relying on the minds of people. Social constructionism is the opposite because it tends to unveil the process or methods on how people form groups and create their shared reality. It starts with how each person interprets the concepts or objects and later on they share them in a group. The group combines the ideas of the members until they come up with the interpretation to be institutionalized. Those institutionalized interpretations become the traditions that are passed on to the next generation. Since the construction in social perspective is continuous, there is a possibility of change in the interpretation and content of the perspectives (Burr, 1995, p. 4). In addition, in order for those ideas to survive, constant reaffirmation is necessary. Social constructs are not limited to material things as they may deal with ideas and facts and how people believe in them. Such kind of scope has brought about some connections in the modern developmental theories created by Jerome Burner and Lev Vygotsky. With the use of social construction for an issue, it would provide the readers with a clearer picture. For example, the topic is gender and it is considered to be created by people in the group called society. It is a social construct because its meaning may be slightly change based on the perception of the convention. It is not strictly in line with biology which is only dictated upon by nature. It also means that there is a possibility of the gender being viewed as negative and later on may become positive through a change in social perspective (Hacking 1999, p. 12). In essence, social constructions may have unclear definitions or may not provide specific things that are unavoidable. For example, grams may be considered as innate to the objects since all objects have weight which is determined by natural forces. On the other hand, the idea of grams may be considered as avoidable which means that it is synthetic. Sometimes it becomes so problematic because it is hard to differentiate the idea of the grams in that case and the presence of the grams themselves because of the weight. The situation has a problem in philosophy which shows that metaphysics may be applied to differentiate the idea and the actual existing matter. To show how the methodology of social construction is done, Hacking (1999, p. 6) had shown the steps: (0) In the present state of affairs, X is taken for granted; X appears to be inevitable. (1) X need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is. X, or X as it is at present, is not determined by the nature of things; it is not inevitable. (2) X is quite bad as it is. (3) We would be much better off if X were done away with, or at least radically transformed. The first step shows that the concept being talked about is unavoidable. Next, it may show that the concept in focus is not necessary to exist. It is actually avoidable and not dictated by nature. Afterwards, there could be changes to the perspective on the concept. Lastly, if the perspective is not changed, it is not useful. Now, the social construction can be used in analysing the situation of education and race in United Kingdom. In the past decades, there have been some issues when it comes to education and race because there are inequalities in the achievements of students in terms of their formal education. Some minorities do not get the same level of education as the White ones do. Probably, there is a superiority complex among those coming from the race with white complexion. Other than the unequal acceptance in education, there is also racial segregation or isolation of people into ethnic or racial groups. The diversity was once not respected and observed (Cole 2006, p. 63). In response to the problem, the government had created an amendment in 2010 to provide equal rights in education and remove the racial segregation and other discrimination in terms of education. The phenomenon can be checked using the social construction in four steps. First, the differences in race were unavoidable and the education was not accessible to all. Second, races were really there and the current discrimination is not good. Third, policy makers have thought of ways on how to change the game of education in United Kingdom. Lastly, an amendment was created to provide equality in education and remove racial discrimination. References Burr, V. (1995) An introduction to social construction. USA: Routledge. Cole, M. (2006) Education, equality and human rights: Issues of gender, race, sexuality, disability and social class. USA: Routledge. Hacking, I. (1999) The social construction of what? USA: Harvard University Press. Lentz, R. and Gower, K. (2011) The opinions of mankind: Racial issues, press, and propaganda in the Cold War. USA: University of Missouri. Noll, J. (2008) Educational issues: Taking Sides. USA: Mc-Graw Hill. Read More