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Social Constructivism: History
Please note this is an old version of this entry, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Subjects: Sociology

Social constructivism is a theoretical perspective that views knowledge, meanings, and aspects of social reality as being constructed and maintained through social interaction, communication, and shared practices [1]. It emphasizes that people develop understandings of the world through participation in historically and culturally situated social processes rather than acquiring knowledge independently of their social environment [2]. Language, social interaction, institutions, and shared systems of meaning contribute to the formation of concepts and categories that can come to be experienced as established or objective features of social reality [1]. Social constructivism also recognizes that these constructions are not necessarily fixed; they can be reproduced, negotiated, challenged, and transformed as social relations and contexts change [3]. The perspective has been applied to the study of knowledge, identity, institutions, norms, social categories, and other phenomena whose meanings depend partly on collective processes of interpretation and interaction [2][3]. It therefore emphasizes the role of social processes in shaping how people understand and organize their social world.

  • social constructivism
  • social construction
  • social reality
  • social interaction
  • knowledge construction
  • shared meaning

Philosophy and Social Theory • Sociology and Political Science •  Social Sciences •  Social Sciences

References

  1. Kenneth J. Gergen. Social Construction; Wiley: Hoboken, NJ, United States, 2010; pp. 1-3. [CrossRef]
  2. Klaus Krippendorff. Social Construction of Reality; Wiley: Hoboken, NJ, United States, 2016; pp. 1-9. [CrossRef]
  3. Diego Romaioli; Sheila McNamee; (Mis)constructing social construction: Answering the critiques. Theory Psychol. 2020, 31, 315-334, 10.1177/0959354320967757.
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