Constructionism

Definition

A perspective that considers facts, descriptions and other features of ‘objective reality’ to be inescapably contingent and rhetorical. This is a more recent formulation of constructionism (without the ‘social’) which follows the traditional view of social constructionism as a perspective wherein people are seen as produced (constructed) through social interaction rather than through genetic programming and biological maturation.

Distinctive Features

There are a number of different traditions of constructionist thought. In feminist theory there are arguments for the constructed rather than essential nature of gender categories. In educational research constructionism describes a theory that emphasizes the activity of the learner in constructing knowledge. In sociology Berger and Luckmann's hugely influential book from 1966, The Social Construction of Society, emphasized the way people experience reality through different constructions.

Gergen (1999) distinguishes between some of the different constructionisms that have developed in psychology:

Constructivism has been used to describe the work of thinkers such as Jean Piaget and George Kelly. There is a strong emphasis on the constructions as something mental (like images or pictures) produced through interaction with objects or some features of the external world.

Social constructivism has been used for work where the constructions are something mental, as with constructivism, but they are generated as much through social relationships and conversation as through interaction with objects. Lev Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner are key exponents of this perspective. Another variant of social constructivism comes in the form of social representations theory, developed by Serge Moscovici. Its emphasis is on mental representations and how these are used to construct reality.

Social constructionism is distinct again for giving a central role to discourse in the construction of self and the world. Gergen (1994) usefully highlights some basic assumptions for a social constructionist science. These include the following. First, the terms we use to describe ourselves and our worlds are not dictated by their objects. Second, the terms through which we understand the world and ourselves are social artefacts, produced over historic time through exchanges between people within cultures. Third, any account of the world or self is sustained not by its objective validity but by social processes. Finally, language derives its significance in human affairs from the way it functions within relationships.

A major impetus behind modern constructionism comes from sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) where a series of highly detailed studies of various scientific and engineering controversies highlighted the contingency of scientific facts and technological artefacts. In contrast to standard views of science, SSK researchers suggested that the products of scientists are fabricated through social interaction between specific individuals in accordance with ad hoc criteria in idiosyncratic circumstances in which scientists work in an opportunistic manner.

Potter (1996) has attempted to systematize the field of constructionist thinking in discourse analysis, sociology of scientific knowledge and post-structuralism. He focuses on constructionism as a practical position that highlights particular research topics. Rather than searching for a fundamental philosophical justification, the idea of discourse constructing the world rather than reflectingdirects the researcher towards studying how descriptions are made to seem objective and independent of their producer, and how they are used in particular actions. Potter reviews a range of procedures through which descriptions can be made objective,

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