Summary of Social Constructionism by Vivien Burr

Social Constructoniss – Sussary


Chapter 1. What is social constructionism?
Is there a defnition of social constructionism?
There is no one feature that could be said to identff a social constructonist positonn nstead, we
might looself think of as social constructonist anf approach that accepts one or more of the
following kef assumptonss

 A critcal stanca towar taean for granta enowla ga
- be critcal of the idea that our observatons of the world unproblematcallf field its
nature to us
- challenge the view that conventonal knowledge is based upon objectve, unbiased
observaton of the world
 Historical an cultural spacifcity
- social constructonism argues that the wafs in which we commonlf understand the
world, the categories and concepts we use, are historicallf and culturallf specific, thef
are products of that culture and historf, dependent upon the partcular social and
economic arrangements prevailing in that culture at that tme
- we should not assume that our wafs of understanding are necessarilf anf beter, in
terms of being anf nearer the truth, than other wafs
 Knowla ga is sustaina by social procassas
- people construct their knowledge of the world between them
- it is through the dailf interactons between people in the course of social life that our
versions of knowledge become fabricated
- what we regard as truth maf be thought of as our current accepted wafs of
understanding the world
 Knowla ga an social acton go togathar
- each diferent constructon also brings with it, or invites, a diferent kind of acton from
human beings
- constructons of the world sustain some paterns of social acton and exclude others
- thef are also bound up with power relatons because thef have implicatons for what it is
permissible for diferent people to do, and how thef maf legitmatelf treat others

How is social constructionism diferent from mainstream psychology?
n the following wafs mainstream psfchologf and social psfchologf contrast and difers

 Ant assantaliss
- social constructonism argues that there are no ‘essences’ inside people that make them
what thef are
- social constructonism tries to not be reductonist, reducing complex things to simpler
explanatons, engn reducing complex social behaviours to biologf or brain processes
 Quastoning raaliss
- social constructonism denies that our knowledge is a direct percepton of realitf - instead, as
a culture or societf we construct our own versions of realitf between us
- within social constructonism there can be no such thing as an objectve fact - all knowledge
is derived from looking at the world from some perspectve or other

,  Historical an cultural spacifcity of enowla ga
- the theories and explanatons of psfchologf become tme- and culture-bound and cannot be
taken as final descriptons of human nature
 Languaga as a pra con iton for thought
- the waf a person thinks, the verf categories and concepts that provide a framework of
meaning for them, are provided bf the language that thef use
- language is a necessarf pre-conditon for thought
 Languaga as a fors of social acton
- when people talk to each other, the world gets constructed
- our use of language can therefore be thought of as a form of acton, and some social
constructonists take this ‘performatve’ role of language as their main interest
 A focus on intaracton an social practcas
- social constructonism regards as the proper focus of our enquirf the social practces
engaged in bf people, and their interactons with each other – not the individual and possible
explanatons inside the person
 A focus on procassas
- the explanatons ofered bf social constructonists are more ofen in terms of the dfnamics
of social interacton - the emphasis is thus more on processes than structures

Where did social constructionism come from?
Combined infuencess

 Philosophical infuancas
- Postmodernism - a rejecton of both the idea that there can be an ultmate truth and
of structuralism, the idea that the world as we see it is the result of hidden structures
- emphasises the co-existence of a multplicitf and varietf of situaton-dependent
wafs of life (pluralism)
- Enlightenment - to understand the true nature of realitf through the applicaton of
reason and ratonalitf
 Sociological infuancas
- Sociologf of knowledge - how sociocultural forces construct knowledge and the kind
of knowledge thef construct
- Sfmbolic interactonism - people construct their own and others’ identtes through
their everfdaf encounters with each other in social interacton
- Ethnomethodologf - tried to understand the processes bf which ordinarf people
construct social life and make sense of it to themselves and each other
- the world can be sociallf constructed bf the social practces of people but at the
same tme experienced bf them as if the nature of their world is pre-given and fixed
 Tha turn to languaga an tha ‘crisis’ in social psychology
- the emergence of social constructonism is usuallf dated from Gergen’s (1973) paper
‘Social psfchologf as historf’ in which he argues that we must look befond the
individual and enquire into social, politcal and economic realms for a proper
understanding of the evoluton of present-daf psfchologf and social lifen
- argues that it is pointless to look for final descriptons of people or societf, since the
onlf abiding feature of psfchological and social life is that it is contnuallf changing
- all we can ever do is to trf to understand and account for how the world appears to
be at the present tme