
A social construction, or social construct, according to the school of social constructionism, 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 human choices rather than laws of God or nature. Some ideas which have been famously described as social constructs include race, class, gender, and reality. Connotations of "social construction" may include ''made-up'', ''accidental'', or ''arbitrary''. The term is generally used to identify concepts which are taken for granted, and is frequently used in a disparaging manner, to the degree to which the user believes the concept is harmful or silly. == The term "social construction" == The first book with "social construction" in its title was Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann's ''Socially constructed reality'', first published in 1966. Since then, the term found its way into the mainstream of the social sciences. For a description of key concepts, see social constructionism and deconstruction. Philosopher and historian of science Ian Hacking (1999, p. 18) claims that the term is also used where its usage isn't meaningful. As an example, he relates that Rom Harré's publisher insisted that Harré change the title of one of his works from ''The Social Production of Emotions'' to ''The Social Construction of the Emotions'' (Wikipedia's emphasis) since more copies would sell under the new title. "Social construction" may also sometimes be used primarily to make friends or enemies; as Hacking (1999, p. vii) says, "The phrase has become code. If you use it favorably, you deem yourself rather radical. If you trash the phrase, you declare that you are rational, reasonable, and respectable". Even if "social construction" has become something of a buzzword, Berger and Luckmann's book has influenced the social sciences on a deep level. They have described how the invisible but mighty borders and sets of rules of society are created, changed, institutionalized and transmitted to the next generation. == What entails a social construct? == Different authors have different views on what being a ''social construct'' entails. Nonetheless, following, Gross and Levitt, we can classify many views into one of two roughly defined camps: "weak" and "strong" social constructionism. === Weak social constructionism === Linguist Steven Pinker (2002, p. 202) writes that "some categories really are social constructions: they exist only because people tacitly agree to act as if they exist. Examples include money, tenure, citizenship, decorations for bravery, and the presidency of the United States." In a similar vein, Stanley Fish (Fish 1996) has suggested that the baseball's "balls and strikes" are social constructions (Hacking 1999, pp. 29-31). Both Hacking(?) and Pinker agree that the sorts of object (philosophy)s indicated here can be described as part of what John Searle calls "social reality". In particular, they are, in Searle's terms, ontologically subjective but epistemologically objective. Informally, they require human practices to sustain their existence, but they have an effect that is (basically) universally agreed upon. The disagreement lies in whether this category should be called "socially constructed". Hacking (1997) argues that it should not. Furthermore, it is not clear that authors who write "social construction" analyses ever mean "social construction" in Pinker's sense. If they never do, then Pinker (probably among others) has misunderstood the point of a social construction argument. People who write social construction analyses are sometimes called social constructionists. They are not the only ones, however. To the annoyance of Hacking (1999, p. 65), some people count all scholars in the fields known as Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, Science and Technology Studies, and Social Studies of Science as constructionists, even those who do not discuss science in the terms described above. === Strong social constructionism === "Science is a highly elaborated set of conventions brought forth by one particular culture (our own) in the circumstances of one particular historical period; thus it is not, as the standard view would have it, a body of knowledge and testable conjecture concerning the real world. It is a discourse, devised by and for one specialized interpretive community, under terms created by the complex net of social circumstance, political opinion, economic incentive and ideological climate that constitutes the ineluctable human environment of the scientist. Thus, orthodox science is but one discursive community among the many that now exist and that have existed historically. Consequently its truth claims are irreducibly self-referential, in that they can be upheld only by appeal to the standards that define the scientific community and distinguish it from other social formations." (Gross and Levitt, Higher Superstition) Scientists and historians generally do not attempt to refute the idea that most (or all) of the world is a social construction. The entire idea is widely dismissed as a disguised version of solipsism. Some literary critics do think it is worth refuting this position. A few attempts have been made to refute the idea that ''everything'' is socially constructed. However, it is not clear that anyone has seriously claimed that everything is a social construct. (Hacking 1999, pp. 24-25). Consider ''The Social Construction of Reality''. In the introduction, Berger and Luckmann clarify that they are not investigating "reality" in any deep philosophical sense, only what the common man takes as real on a day-to-day basis. == What kind of analyses are "social construction" analyses? == This is a difficult question to answer; "social construction" may mean many things to many people. Hacking, having examined a wide range of books and articles with titles of the form "The social construction of __________" or "Constructing __________", argues that when something (let's call it X) is said to be "socially constructed", this is shorthand for at least the following two claims: : (0) In the present state of affairs, X is taken for granted; X appears to be inevitable. (Hacking 1999, p. 12) : (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. (Hacking 1999, p. 6. Emphasis added.) [1] Hacking adds that the following claims are also often, though not always, implied by the use of the phrase "social construction": : (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. (Hacking 1999, p. 6) Thus a claim that gender is socially constructed probably means that gender, as currently understood, is not an inevitable result of biology, but highly contingent on social and historical processes. In addition, depending on who is making the claim, it may mean that our current understanding of gender is harmful, and should be modified or eliminated, to the extent possible. According to Hacking, "social construction" claims are not always clear about exactly what isn't "inevitable", or exactly what "should be done away with." Consider a hypothetical claim that quarks are "socially constructed". On one reading, this means that quarks themselves are not "inevitable" or "determined by the nature of things." On another reading, this means that our ''idea'' (or conceptualization, or understanding) of quarks is not "inevitable" or "determined by the nature of things" [2] Hacking is much more sympathetic to the second reading than the first (Hacking 1999, pp. 68-70). Furthermore, he argues that, if the second reading is taken, there need not always be a conflict between saying that quarks are "socially constructed" and saying that they are "real" (Hacking 1999, pp. 29-30). As we step from the physical word to the world of human beings, "social construction" analyses can become more complex. Hacking briefly examines Helène Moussa’s analysis of the social construction of "women refugees" (Hacking 1999, pp. 9-10). According to him, Moussa's argument has several pieces, some of which may be implicit: # Canadian citizens' idea of "the woman refugee" is not inevitable, but historically contingent. (Thus the idea or category "the woman refugee" can be said to be "socially constructed".) # Women coming to Canada to seek asylum are profoundly affected by the category of "the woman refugee". Among other things, if a woman does not "count" as a "woman refugee" according to the law, she may be deported, and forced to return to very difficult conditions in her homeland. # Such women may modify their behavior, and perhaps even their attitudes towards themselves, in order to gain the benefits of being classified as a "woman refugee". Hacking suggests that this third part of the analysis, the "interaction" between a socially constructed category and the individuals that are actually or potentially included in that category, is present in many "social construction" analyses involving types of human beings. == Notes == [1] Numbering begins with 0 for consistency with Hacking's usage. [2] The distinction between "quarks themselves" and "our idea (or conceptualization, or understanding) of quarks" will undoubtedly trouble some with a philosophical bent. Hacking's distinction is based on an intuitive metaphysics, with a split between things out in the world, on one hand, and ideas thereof in our minds, on the other. Hacking is less advocating a serious, particular metaphysics than suggesting a useful way to analyze claims about "social construction". See (Hacking 1999, pp. 21-24). == See also == * postmodernism * social constructionism * sociology ==References== * Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann: ''The Social Construction of Reality''. New York: Doubleday, 1966. * Ian Hacking (1999). ''The Social Construction of What?''. Harvard University Press: 2001. * Ian Hacking (1997). John Searle's building blocks. ''History of the Human Sciences''. * Steven Pinker (2002). ''The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human nature''. Viking Penguin.
Obviously, I have written the initial version of this article heavily under the influence of Ian Hacking. This is because he is the first author I found offering a somewhat coherent explanation of what calling something "social construction" means. Hacking should not get the last word, however; other perspectives need to get incorporated somehow. Which ones? Well, browsing the web, I found references to Kenneth J. Gergen's ''An Invitation to Social Construction'' and ''Social Construction in Context''. These might be helpful? (I don't know much about them, beyond the name.) I also found Nancy Nelson Spivey's ''The Constructivist Metaphor: Reading, Writing, and the Making of Meaning''. It looks filled with too much postmodern jargon about "texts" and so on for me to understand. But maybe not. I also found Andre Kukla's ''Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science''. Looks like an interesting consideration of the philosophical positions behind the "science wars". I'm not sure what is meant by the difference between ''social construction'' and ''social constructivism''. I do know the book opens with a response and revision of Hacking's characterization of "social construction"; Kukla is looking for a ''definition'', and points out some flaws in Hacking. (The first few pages can be seen for free on amazon.com.) Hacking mentions the work of Sergio Sismondo. The following, among other things, argues that "social construction" (or is it "social constructionist") is not one concept but four, and give an analysis of the four. The argument is somewhat specific to the "Social Studies of Science". :Sismondo, Sergio. 1993. Some social constructions. ''Social Studies of Science'' 23:515-553. Sismondo also has a longer book, which, I think, has the same content, but exanded. Hacking says it looks for some kind of reconciliation between extreme constructivist positions and totally naive views of science: :Sismondo, Sergio. 1996. ''Science without Myth: On Constructions, Reality and Social Knowledge''. Albany: State University of New York Press. There are probably other perspectives. --User:Ryguasu ---- Hacking's book is very important (although I wish this article ad more about Berger and Luckman), but since the article is about social construction, and not about Hacking per se, I cut this: :If the conflict between this vision of "social construction" and Hacking's is not clear, consider Hacking's claim that ::You do not find books on the social construction of banks, the fiscal system, cheques, money, dollar bills, bills of lading, contracts, tort, the Federal Reserve, or the British monarchy. (Hacking 1999, p. 12) I cut it because Hacking here is wrong -- although Simmel and Marx do not use the term "social construction," their books ''The Philosophy of Money'' and ''Capital''[ are most definitely about the "social construction" of money. Corrigan and Sayers work is about the social construction of the British monarchy. So Hacking's claim here is just wrong. If this were an article on Hacking, I'd say, keep the mistake and analyze why he makes this mistake and what it means. But since this is an article on social construction, it is better to keep the focus on that, and correct claims about it. User:Slrubenstein :This is a sensible cut. Hacking's analysis, of course, was based only on books and articles with "construction" in the title, so it is natural that he didn't include this. I wonder to what extent this decision of his has negatively affected his analysis. In any case, some of this should probably be moved to a separate article about the Hacking book in particular. I've yet to learn enough about others' ideas, though, to make this article more general. --User:Ryguasu 06:12 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC) ------ Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure that most physical scientists *would* disagree with the statement in the paragraph on strong social construction. For example, many scientists aren't bothered at all that religious people who claim that the world is 6000 years. The attitude is that they have their version of truth and that's perfectly fine. What does bother scientists is when creationists say that it is scientifically demonstrable that the world is 6000 years old. This then becomes a problem not because Creationists are claiming that the world is 6000 years old, but they are claiming that using the rules of science, it can be shown the the world is 6000 years old. :But that is just the point. When religious people claim that this planet is only 6000 years old, that in itself is a claim about physical reality, it is a scientific claim. Scientists don't care when people making this claim keep to themselves, but as soon as people making this claim atempt to convince others that it is true, and atemnpt to present this view as factual, then scientists get very worried, and strive to debunk this claim. User:RK Many of the scientists I know are deeply religious and they manage to be good scientists by compartmentalizing "scientific truth" with other forms of truth, and it's not necessarily the case that all scientists think that science is the prefered route to truth in all cases (some do, but not all). So its not clear that scientists generally oppose strong social construction. User:Roadrunner :Could you clarify what you mean by "other forms of truth". Other forms of truth about what? Scientists do think that science is the only road to discovering the truth about the physical, natural world. There are no other ways (i.e. mysticism, literary deconstructionism, etc, revelations from Egyptian or Asian gods, etc.) that tell us anything about the natural, physical world. In contrast, strong social constructionists claim that all ways of learning about the natural, physical world (such as the ones I just listed) are equally relevant, and equally true. And this is what all scientists reject. Remmeber, scientists themselves do not claim that science can provide us with all answers about all questions; it is limited to providing questions about the natural, physical world. User:RK 14:52 25 Jun 2003 (UTC) I think, RK, you are too quick to speak on behalf of "all scientists". I'm sure you could define scientist in some way that excludes everyone who finds some validity in postmodern critiques, but this would not necessarily be a NPOV way of going about things. Aside from the points Roadrunner was trying to make, I think that anyone who accepts that "social scientists" are indeed "scientists" is going to end up seeing a certain amount of overlap between scientists and "social constructionists". --User:Ryguasu 22:03 26 Jun 2003 (UTC) :Let me be clear: When I talk about scientists, I mean people who do science. Physicists, Chemists, Biologists, Geologists, Biochemists, Biophysicists, Astronomers, Forensic engineers, etc. I am clearly ''not'' talking about what you call "social scientists". And I am not speaking for scientists; they speak for themselves, and they do so quite clearly. You seem uncomfortable with the fact that the great majority of them reject hard social constructionism as nonsense. User:RK 22:51 26 Jun 2003 (UTC) Let me be clear: I have no trouble with "the great majority" your physical scientists rejecting hard social constructionism. The main thing that bothers me is that you appear to assume that the words "science" and "scientist" are not in the least bit problematic, which may make some of your writing less than NPOV. Since people do not agree on matters such as whether or not "social scientists" are "really scientists", we need to be careful and be explicit, in the articles, about exactly which scientists we're talking about. Statements such as "Scientists and historians generally do not attempt to refute the idea that most (or all) of the world is a social construction" are needlessly ambiguous. --User:Ryguasu 23:46 26 Jun 2003 (UTC) Also, and I ask more out of curiosity than malice, could you tell me how you have come to your conclusions about what most physical scientists think? Do you "just know"? Are there interviews and surveys involved? Have you looked at a study of science curriculums? Perhaps you know lots of scientists? Or perhaps you can't conceive of someone living the paradox of seeing the world through both lenses at once? Although I imagine most physical scientists aren't too keen on social constructionism, it occurs to me I don't really have much evidence that could convince anyone. --User:Ryguasu 23:46 26 Jun 2003 (UTC) ---- RK, can you clarify, here or in the article, what "weak social constructionism" is about -- in general, not just in the consideration of hard science? I certainly don't think Pinker should remain the centerpiece of that section. The main point of mentioning him, in my vision, is to show how some people who ''aren't'' part of the postmodernist movement in any sense use the term. The question is: what do the people who definitely ''are'' part of the postmodernist movement yet don't qualify as "hard" social constructionists say? If we can't answer that question, then I think the split into "hard" and "soft" is not as useful as the organization I gave the article previously. --User:Ryguasu 00:12 27 Jun 2003 (UTC) ---- The article seems horrible POV (in recurse of the reality standards of ''science''). In my opinion, the reality standards of social science should be included into the argumentation. There should be references to social constructivism (or constructionsm), i.e. to Berger/Luckmann, sociology of knowledge et al., and there should be references to radical constructivsm (or constructionsm). In my opinion, the list of things that could be called social constructed in the beginning of the article is ridicioulos -- the reason why gender, quarks, nationalism (including Zulu nationalism) all can be seen as social constructs is because they are -- human beings doing something -- created as social artefacts in the same way. But this article should be about the general rules how human beings create something socially (Socially constructed reality (Berger/Luckmann) could be a good starting point for this debate, phenomenology another one), and these rules shouldn't be ridiculed or pictured only from the very specific view of reality-believers like "hard" scientist. -- User:Tillwe 14:26 24 Jul 2003 (UTC) ---- I ran across this page, and was thoroughly confused what this topic was really about. Would it be possible to put some sort of (obviously rough) definition at the top, to at least get the gist across? : I shall attempt. User:Pjrich 00:41, 16 May 2005 (UTC) ----- Personally, I have found Kenneth Gergen's work to be very informative and often very very dense. It is often oriented towards psychology/sociology due to his own background as a social psychologist. His book "Realities and Relationships" is probably the most complete version of his thoery. Some of his papers are also availble online at his website. [http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/kgergen1/web/page.phtml?id=manuscripts&st=manuscripts Gergen] I would also suggest John Shotter who has similar ideas, but with his own twist and has often criticized Gergen as developing a theory that is too academic and not practical enough to actually bring about the changes he is promoting. Also a very good, but definitely not laymen book, is "Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature" by Richard Rorty. Wow, is that a great book, but very challenging. Finally, to get an idea of how these theories have begun to be implemented in the "real world" I would suggest looking into the works of David Cooperrider on Appreciative Inquiry. You can google for that and find lots of great information. It talks about the social construction of corporate realities and how Appreciative Inquiry leads to the development of a new corporate culture, not through problem solving, but through the building of an entirely new culture.
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Social construction
A social construction, or social construct, according to the school of social constructionism, 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 human choices rather than laws of God or nature. Some ideas which have been famously described as social constructs include race, class, gender, and reality. Connotations of "social construction" may include ''made-up'', ''accidental'', or ''arbitrary''. The term is generally used to identify concepts which are taken for granted, and is frequently used in a disparaging manner, to the degree to which the user believes the concept is harmful or silly. == The term "social construction" == The first book with "social construction" in its title was Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann's ''Socially constructed reality'', first published in 1966. Since then, the term found its way into the mainstream of the social sciences. For a description of key concepts, see social constructionism and deconstruction. Philosopher and historian of science Ian Hacking (1999, p. 18) claims that the term is also used where its usage isn't meaningful. As an example, he relates that Rom Harré's publisher insisted that Harré change the title of one of his works from ''The Social Production of Emotions'' to ''The Social Construction of the Emotions'' (Wikipedia's emphasis) since more copies would sell under the new title. "Social construction" may also sometimes be used primarily to make friends or enemies; as Hacking (1999, p. vii) says, "The phrase has become code. If you use it favorably, you deem yourself rather radical. If you trash the phrase, you declare that you are rational, reasonable, and respectable". Even if "social construction" has become something of a buzzword, Berger and Luckmann's book has influenced the social sciences on a deep level. They have described how the invisible but mighty borders and sets of rules of society are created, changed, institutionalized and transmitted to the next generation. == What entails a social construct? == Different authors have different views on what being a ''social construct'' entails. Nonetheless, following, Gross and Levitt, we can classify many views into one of two roughly defined camps: "weak" and "strong" social constructionism. === Weak social constructionism === Linguist Steven Pinker (2002, p. 202) writes that "some categories really are social constructions: they exist only because people tacitly agree to act as if they exist. Examples include money, tenure, citizenship, decorations for bravery, and the presidency of the United States." In a similar vein, Stanley Fish (Fish 1996) has suggested that the baseball's "balls and strikes" are social constructions (Hacking 1999, pp. 29-31). Both Hacking(?) and Pinker agree that the sorts of object (philosophy)s indicated here can be described as part of what John Searle calls "social reality". In particular, they are, in Searle's terms, ontologically subjective but epistemologically objective. Informally, they require human practices to sustain their existence, but they have an effect that is (basically) universally agreed upon. The disagreement lies in whether this category should be called "socially constructed". Hacking (1997) argues that it should not. Furthermore, it is not clear that authors who write "social construction" analyses ever mean "social construction" in Pinker's sense. If they never do, then Pinker (probably among others) has misunderstood the point of a social construction argument. People who write social construction analyses are sometimes called social constructionists. They are not the only ones, however. To the annoyance of Hacking (1999, p. 65), some people count all scholars in the fields known as Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, Science and Technology Studies, and Social Studies of Science as constructionists, even those who do not discuss science in the terms described above. === Strong social constructionism === "Science is a highly elaborated set of conventions brought forth by one particular culture (our own) in the circumstances of one particular historical period; thus it is not, as the standard view would have it, a body of knowledge and testable conjecture concerning the real world. It is a discourse, devised by and for one specialized interpretive community, under terms created by the complex net of social circumstance, political opinion, economic incentive and ideological climate that constitutes the ineluctable human environment of the scientist. Thus, orthodox science is but one discursive community among the many that now exist and that have existed historically. Consequently its truth claims are irreducibly self-referential, in that they can be upheld only by appeal to the standards that define the scientific community and distinguish it from other social formations." (Gross and Levitt, Higher Superstition) Scientists and historians generally do not attempt to refute the idea that most (or all) of the world is a social construction. The entire idea is widely dismissed as a disguised version of solipsism. Some literary critics do think it is worth refuting this position. A few attempts have been made to refute the idea that ''everything'' is socially constructed. However, it is not clear that anyone has seriously claimed that everything is a social construct. (Hacking 1999, pp. 24-25). Consider ''The Social Construction of Reality''. In the introduction, Berger and Luckmann clarify that they are not investigating "reality" in any deep philosophical sense, only what the common man takes as real on a day-to-day basis. == What kind of analyses are "social construction" analyses? == This is a difficult question to answer; "social construction" may mean many things to many people. Hacking, having examined a wide range of books and articles with titles of the form "The social construction of __________" or "Constructing __________", argues that when something (let's call it X) is said to be "socially constructed", this is shorthand for at least the following two claims: : (0) In the present state of affairs, X is taken for granted; X appears to be inevitable. (Hacking 1999, p. 12) : (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. (Hacking 1999, p. 6. Emphasis added.) [1] Hacking adds that the following claims are also often, though not always, implied by the use of the phrase "social construction": : (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. (Hacking 1999, p. 6) Thus a claim that gender is socially constructed probably means that gender, as currently understood, is not an inevitable result of biology, but highly contingent on social and historical processes. In addition, depending on who is making the claim, it may mean that our current understanding of gender is harmful, and should be modified or eliminated, to the extent possible. According to Hacking, "social construction" claims are not always clear about exactly what isn't "inevitable", or exactly what "should be done away with." Consider a hypothetical claim that quarks are "socially constructed". On one reading, this means that quarks themselves are not "inevitable" or "determined by the nature of things." On another reading, this means that our ''idea'' (or conceptualization, or understanding) of quarks is not "inevitable" or "determined by the nature of things" [2] Hacking is much more sympathetic to the second reading than the first (Hacking 1999, pp. 68-70). Furthermore, he argues that, if the second reading is taken, there need not always be a conflict between saying that quarks are "socially constructed" and saying that they are "real" (Hacking 1999, pp. 29-30). As we step from the physical word to the world of human beings, "social construction" analyses can become more complex. Hacking briefly examines Helène Moussa’s analysis of the social construction of "women refugees" (Hacking 1999, pp. 9-10). According to him, Moussa's argument has several pieces, some of which may be implicit: # Canadian citizens' idea of "the woman refugee" is not inevitable, but historically contingent. (Thus the idea or category "the woman refugee" can be said to be "socially constructed".) # Women coming to Canada to seek asylum are profoundly affected by the category of "the woman refugee". Among other things, if a woman does not "count" as a "woman refugee" according to the law, she may be deported, and forced to return to very difficult conditions in her homeland. # Such women may modify their behavior, and perhaps even their attitudes towards themselves, in order to gain the benefits of being classified as a "woman refugee". Hacking suggests that this third part of the analysis, the "interaction" between a socially constructed category and the individuals that are actually or potentially included in that category, is present in many "social construction" analyses involving types of human beings. == Notes == [1] Numbering begins with 0 for consistency with Hacking's usage. [2] The distinction between "quarks themselves" and "our idea (or conceptualization, or understanding) of quarks" will undoubtedly trouble some with a philosophical bent. Hacking's distinction is based on an intuitive metaphysics, with a split between things out in the world, on one hand, and ideas thereof in our minds, on the other. Hacking is less advocating a serious, particular metaphysics than suggesting a useful way to analyze claims about "social construction". See (Hacking 1999, pp. 21-24). == See also == * postmodernism * social constructionism * sociology ==References== * Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann: ''The Social Construction of Reality''. New York: Doubleday, 1966. * Ian Hacking (1999). ''The Social Construction of What?''. Harvard University Press: 2001. * Ian Hacking (1997). John Searle's building blocks. ''History of the Human Sciences''. * Steven Pinker (2002). ''The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human nature''. Viking Penguin.
Social construction
Obviously, I have written the initial version of this article heavily under the influence of Ian Hacking. This is because he is the first author I found offering a somewhat coherent explanation of what calling something "social construction" means. Hacking should not get the last word, however; other perspectives need to get incorporated somehow. Which ones? Well, browsing the web, I found references to Kenneth J. Gergen's ''An Invitation to Social Construction'' and ''Social Construction in Context''. These might be helpful? (I don't know much about them, beyond the name.) I also found Nancy Nelson Spivey's ''The Constructivist Metaphor: Reading, Writing, and the Making of Meaning''. It looks filled with too much postmodern jargon about "texts" and so on for me to understand. But maybe not. I also found Andre Kukla's ''Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science''. Looks like an interesting consideration of the philosophical positions behind the "science wars". I'm not sure what is meant by the difference between ''social construction'' and ''social constructivism''. I do know the book opens with a response and revision of Hacking's characterization of "social construction"; Kukla is looking for a ''definition'', and points out some flaws in Hacking. (The first few pages can be seen for free on amazon.com.) Hacking mentions the work of Sergio Sismondo. The following, among other things, argues that "social construction" (or is it "social constructionist") is not one concept but four, and give an analysis of the four. The argument is somewhat specific to the "Social Studies of Science". :Sismondo, Sergio. 1993. Some social constructions. ''Social Studies of Science'' 23:515-553. Sismondo also has a longer book, which, I think, has the same content, but exanded. Hacking says it looks for some kind of reconciliation between extreme constructivist positions and totally naive views of science: :Sismondo, Sergio. 1996. ''Science without Myth: On Constructions, Reality and Social Knowledge''. Albany: State University of New York Press. There are probably other perspectives. --User:Ryguasu ---- Hacking's book is very important (although I wish this article ad more about Berger and Luckman), but since the article is about social construction, and not about Hacking per se, I cut this: :If the conflict between this vision of "social construction" and Hacking's is not clear, consider Hacking's claim that ::You do not find books on the social construction of banks, the fiscal system, cheques, money, dollar bills, bills of lading, contracts, tort, the Federal Reserve, or the British monarchy. (Hacking 1999, p. 12) I cut it because Hacking here is wrong -- although Simmel and Marx do not use the term "social construction," their books ''The Philosophy of Money'' and ''Capital''[ are most definitely about the "social construction" of money. Corrigan and Sayers work is about the social construction of the British monarchy. So Hacking's claim here is just wrong. If this were an article on Hacking, I'd say, keep the mistake and analyze why he makes this mistake and what it means. But since this is an article on social construction, it is better to keep the focus on that, and correct claims about it. User:Slrubenstein :This is a sensible cut. Hacking's analysis, of course, was based only on books and articles with "construction" in the title, so it is natural that he didn't include this. I wonder to what extent this decision of his has negatively affected his analysis. In any case, some of this should probably be moved to a separate article about the Hacking book in particular. I've yet to learn enough about others' ideas, though, to make this article more general. --User:Ryguasu 06:12 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC) ------ Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure that most physical scientists *would* disagree with the statement in the paragraph on strong social construction. For example, many scientists aren't bothered at all that religious people who claim that the world is 6000 years. The attitude is that they have their version of truth and that's perfectly fine. What does bother scientists is when creationists say that it is scientifically demonstrable that the world is 6000 years old. This then becomes a problem not because Creationists are claiming that the world is 6000 years old, but they are claiming that using the rules of science, it can be shown the the world is 6000 years old. :But that is just the point. When religious people claim that this planet is only 6000 years old, that in itself is a claim about physical reality, it is a scientific claim. Scientists don't care when people making this claim keep to themselves, but as soon as people making this claim atempt to convince others that it is true, and atemnpt to present this view as factual, then scientists get very worried, and strive to debunk this claim. User:RK Many of the scientists I know are deeply religious and they manage to be good scientists by compartmentalizing "scientific truth" with other forms of truth, and it's not necessarily the case that all scientists think that science is the prefered route to truth in all cases (some do, but not all). So its not clear that scientists generally oppose strong social construction. User:Roadrunner :Could you clarify what you mean by "other forms of truth". Other forms of truth about what? Scientists do think that science is the only road to discovering the truth about the physical, natural world. There are no other ways (i.e. mysticism, literary deconstructionism, etc, revelations from Egyptian or Asian gods, etc.) that tell us anything about the natural, physical world. In contrast, strong social constructionists claim that all ways of learning about the natural, physical world (such as the ones I just listed) are equally relevant, and equally true. And this is what all scientists reject. Remmeber, scientists themselves do not claim that science can provide us with all answers about all questions; it is limited to providing questions about the natural, physical world. User:RK 14:52 25 Jun 2003 (UTC) I think, RK, you are too quick to speak on behalf of "all scientists". I'm sure you could define scientist in some way that excludes everyone who finds some validity in postmodern critiques, but this would not necessarily be a NPOV way of going about things. Aside from the points Roadrunner was trying to make, I think that anyone who accepts that "social scientists" are indeed "scientists" is going to end up seeing a certain amount of overlap between scientists and "social constructionists". --User:Ryguasu 22:03 26 Jun 2003 (UTC) :Let me be clear: When I talk about scientists, I mean people who do science. Physicists, Chemists, Biologists, Geologists, Biochemists, Biophysicists, Astronomers, Forensic engineers, etc. I am clearly ''not'' talking about what you call "social scientists". And I am not speaking for scientists; they speak for themselves, and they do so quite clearly. You seem uncomfortable with the fact that the great majority of them reject hard social constructionism as nonsense. User:RK 22:51 26 Jun 2003 (UTC) Let me be clear: I have no trouble with "the great majority" your physical scientists rejecting hard social constructionism. The main thing that bothers me is that you appear to assume that the words "science" and "scientist" are not in the least bit problematic, which may make some of your writing less than NPOV. Since people do not agree on matters such as whether or not "social scientists" are "really scientists", we need to be careful and be explicit, in the articles, about exactly which scientists we're talking about. Statements such as "Scientists and historians generally do not attempt to refute the idea that most (or all) of the world is a social construction" are needlessly ambiguous. --User:Ryguasu 23:46 26 Jun 2003 (UTC) Also, and I ask more out of curiosity than malice, could you tell me how you have come to your conclusions about what most physical scientists think? Do you "just know"? Are there interviews and surveys involved? Have you looked at a study of science curriculums? Perhaps you know lots of scientists? Or perhaps you can't conceive of someone living the paradox of seeing the world through both lenses at once? Although I imagine most physical scientists aren't too keen on social constructionism, it occurs to me I don't really have much evidence that could convince anyone. --User:Ryguasu 23:46 26 Jun 2003 (UTC) ---- RK, can you clarify, here or in the article, what "weak social constructionism" is about -- in general, not just in the consideration of hard science? I certainly don't think Pinker should remain the centerpiece of that section. The main point of mentioning him, in my vision, is to show how some people who ''aren't'' part of the postmodernist movement in any sense use the term. The question is: what do the people who definitely ''are'' part of the postmodernist movement yet don't qualify as "hard" social constructionists say? If we can't answer that question, then I think the split into "hard" and "soft" is not as useful as the organization I gave the article previously. --User:Ryguasu 00:12 27 Jun 2003 (UTC) ---- The article seems horrible POV (in recurse of the reality standards of ''science''). In my opinion, the reality standards of social science should be included into the argumentation. There should be references to social constructivism (or constructionsm), i.e. to Berger/Luckmann, sociology of knowledge et al., and there should be references to radical constructivsm (or constructionsm). In my opinion, the list of things that could be called social constructed in the beginning of the article is ridicioulos -- the reason why gender, quarks, nationalism (including Zulu nationalism) all can be seen as social constructs is because they are -- human beings doing something -- created as social artefacts in the same way. But this article should be about the general rules how human beings create something socially (Socially constructed reality (Berger/Luckmann) could be a good starting point for this debate, phenomenology another one), and these rules shouldn't be ridiculed or pictured only from the very specific view of reality-believers like "hard" scientist. -- User:Tillwe 14:26 24 Jul 2003 (UTC) ---- I ran across this page, and was thoroughly confused what this topic was really about. Would it be possible to put some sort of (obviously rough) definition at the top, to at least get the gist across? : I shall attempt. User:Pjrich 00:41, 16 May 2005 (UTC) ----- Personally, I have found Kenneth Gergen's work to be very informative and often very very dense. It is often oriented towards psychology/sociology due to his own background as a social psychologist. His book "Realities and Relationships" is probably the most complete version of his thoery. Some of his papers are also availble online at his website. [http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/kgergen1/web/page.phtml?id=manuscripts&st=manuscripts Gergen] I would also suggest John Shotter who has similar ideas, but with his own twist and has often criticized Gergen as developing a theory that is too academic and not practical enough to actually bring about the changes he is promoting. Also a very good, but definitely not laymen book, is "Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature" by Richard Rorty. Wow, is that a great book, but very challenging. Finally, to get an idea of how these theories have begun to be implemented in the "real world" I would suggest looking into the works of David Cooperrider on Appreciative Inquiry. You can google for that and find lots of great information. It talks about the social construction of corporate realities and how Appreciative Inquiry leads to the development of a new corporate culture, not through problem solving, but through the building of an entirely new culture.
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SB | SC | SD | SE | SF | SG | SH | SI | SJ | SK | SL | SM | SN | SO | SP | SR | SS | ST | SU | SW | SX | SY | SZ |Words begining with Social_construction:
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