Sociological Theory: Social Constructionism

The following article is a summary of the theoretical orientation known as social constructionism. According to social constructionists, knowledge is created through social interaction. In other words, there is no objective reality that exists independently of people, and truth can never be universal or absolute. Although the term “social constructionism” wasn't introduced until the mid-twentieth century, the ideas that inform it have a long history. The historical foundations of social constructionism will be introduced, with an emphasis on Berger and Luckmann's 1966 publication of “The Social Construction of Reality”. Although there is no single definition of social constructionism in academia today, there are several core principles common to this theoretical orientation. The core principles will be reviewed, along with examples of research applications, and a brief discussion of the major critiques of the theory.

Keywords Ethnography; Externalization; Habituation; Historicity; Institutionalization; Internalization; Positivism; Relativism; Social interaction

Overview

Social constructionism is a cross-disciplinary theoretical orientation, and has been adopted in one form or another by linguists, psychologists, sociologists, historians, literary theorists, and anthropologists alike (Brickell, 2006). And yet, the questions that social constructionists attempt to answer, even across disciplines, are largely the same. What is knowledge? Does knowledge change over time? Across cultures? Is there a reality or truth that exists independently of human beings and their interactions with one another? The social constructionists' answers to these questions place them front and center in a larger theoretical debate between positivists on the one hand, and postmodernists on the other. In some sense, social constructionism can best be defined by first explaining what it is not.

Positivism

Positivism, or essentialism, has a long history, having originated during the Age of Enlightenment—also known as the Age of Reason—in eighteenth century Europe (Burr, 1995). Enlightenment thinkers reacted against the power vested in the church and state, an authority based largely on tradition, superstition, and irrationality. They believed that reason was the only way to guard the common man against tyrannical rule and thus, it was during this period that the scientific method was born. Along with this method came a set of fundamental assumptions about the nature of knowledge and truth—mainly, that an objective reality exists in the world independently of human beings, we can perceive this reality directly through our senses, and truth is something that can be attained, in an absolute and universal sense (Burr, 1995; Hibberd, 2005; Cisneros-Puebla & Faux, 2008). For positivists, knowledge is ahistorical and acultural.

Although positivism is arguably the predominant theoretical orientation embraced by natural and social scientists today, the collective dissenting voices of postmodernists and constructionists have grown exponentially in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (Cisneros-Puebla & Faux, 2008). Their multifaceted response to positivism can best be distilled into this singular critique—that positivists are ultimately guilty of the very thing they hoped to eradicate. Gergen (as cited in Cisneros-Puebla & Faux, 2008) explains, "to me, it is ironic that the Enlightenment, with its great promise of replacing dogma with freedom, has slowly established yet another dogma. When science begins to claim that everyone should think in its terms, it becomes the new dogma, and the process of suppression begins once again" (¶ 26). For constructionists, the notion of an objective, absolute truth existing independently of culture, history, or power is as limiting as superstition. Constructionists believe, rather, that "meaning [or truth] is ours to make [through our interaction with one another and the world]; it is not 'out there' to be discovered" (Cisneros-Puebla & Faux, 2008, ¶ 5).

Theories & Theorists

Although social constructionism has gained momentum in recent years, the ideas it proposes can be traced back to a variety of scholars over the past few hundred years. As Berger explains, "many of the fundamental assumptions [of social constructionism] have been alive and well and living in sociology for quite some time" (p. 9). In sociology in particular, the 1966 publication of Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality is marked as a watershed moment, for it was in this publication that the term social construction was first coined (Hibberd, 2005). But even Berger and Luckmann (1966) concede that their ideas precede them. "Neither the general problem [of our publication] nor its narrower focus is new. An awareness of the social foundations of values and world views can be found in antiquity" (p. 5).

For Berger and Luckmann (1966), theorists such as Marx, Nietzsche, and Mead, and theoretical perspectives such as historicism were the immediate precursors to social constructionism. It was from Marx, for example, that "the sociology of knowledge derived its root proposition—that man's consciousness is determined by his social being" (p. 6). Nietzsche suggested ways in which human thought might be influenced by power and conflict. In the mid-twentieth century, George Herbert Mead proposed the theory of symbolic interactionism, arguing that people construct their sense of self through interactions with others (Burr, 1995). Historicism, which acknowledged the relativity of human thought and its situational context, contributed to the development of social constructionism too, as did ethnomethodology, a research technique developed in the 1950s that allowed scholars to understand how ordinary people construct and interpret their lives (Burr, 1995). The ideas of other theorists—Mannheim, Scheler, Merton, and Foucault, to name just a few—were adopted in part by social constructionists as well.

Although the precursors to social constructionism were many and varied, Berger and Luckmann (1966) were the first to distill these ideas into "a sociology of knowledge. " About their work they wrote, "the basic contentions of the argument of the book are implicit in its title and subtitle, namely, that reality is socially constructed and that the sociology of knowledge must analyze the processes in which this occurs" (p. 1). More specifically, Berger and Luckmann were interested in the ways in which knowledge came to be established or agreed upon as "reality. " They were the first to show, Burr (1995) argues, how "the world can be socially constructed by the social practices of people, but at the same time be experienced by them as if the nature of their world is pre-given and fixed" (p. 10). All of which implies their interest in everyday, common knowledge—not just theory or scholarship—and the ways in which people make meaning in their ordinary, day-to-day lives.

Berger & Luckmann's Social Construction

For Berger and Luckmann (1966) the process by which knowledge becomes reality, or taken-for-granted everyday knowledge, is threefold—it involves externalization, legitimization, and internalization, all of which are part of a dialectical relationship between an individual and the social world. More specifically, when man acts, or externalizes, in the social world, all such acts have the potential to become habituated. Habituation can occur in isolation from others, but when habituated action is reciprocated, institutions develop. Therefore institutions exist only in relation to other people, and yet they are "experienced as an objective reality." As Berger and Luckmann (1966) argue, "despite the objectivity that marks the social world in human experience, it does not thereby acquire an ontological status apart from the human activity that produced it" (p. 61). The final stage of the process occurs when an individual internalizes the social world and shared meanings; primary socialization occurs first, in childhood, but secondary socialization or internalization is an ongoing process.

Although Berger and Luckmann (1966) were the first to coin the term social construction, the theory has grown exponentially since then. Along with this growth, however, has come some confusion. As Burr (1995) argues, "there is no single description [of social constructionism] which would be adequate." Brickell (2006) concurs when he writes "First, we ought to recognize the multiplicity of social constructionism or, more accurately, social constructionisms" (p. 87). And yet, there are some core principles—or what Burr (1995) refers to as "family resemblances"—that the different types of social constructionism have in common.

First and foremost, perhaps, social constructionists challenge conventional, taken-for-granted knowledge. By adopting what Burr (1995) refers to as a "critical stance," social constructionists "invite us…to challenge the view that conventional knowledge is based upon objective, unbiased observation of the world" (p. 3). Berger and Luckmann (1996) suggest that our taken-for-granted understandings of the world shouldn't be separated from the people who constructed those understandings in the first place. "It is essential to keep pushing questions about the historically available conceptualizations of reality from the abstract 'what?' to the sociologically concrete, 'says who?'" (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, as cited in Guess, 2006, p. 658).

Social constructionists are especially critical of what are often referred to as grand theories or meta-narratives—theories that purport to explain all of human or social life. Thus, whereas positivists seek universals and absolutes, social constructionists emphasize the ways in which knowledge changes over time. Gergen (1967), a prominent psychologist studying human behavior from a constructionist point of view, argues that "the only abiding feature of social life is that it is continually changing" (as cited in Burr, 1995, p. 11). Implicit in the notion of continual change is the idea that multiple meanings can coexist at one time; there is no single truth, but rather a variety of perspectives available to us at any one time.

Knowledge is continually shifting because, according to social constructionists, it is always context dependent. In other words, knowledge varies across time and across cultures. As Burr (1995) writes, "This means that all ways of understanding are historically and culturally relative. The particular forms of knowledge that abound in any culture are…artifacts of it, and we should not assume that our ways of understanding are necessarily any better (in terms of being any nearer the truth) than other ways" (p. 4). Guess (2006) uses Foucault's conceptualization of an "archeology of knowledge" to suggest how changes in knowledge can be studied over time; using race as an example, he documents the social construction of notions of "whiteness" and "other" through the human traces that people leave behind. Traces are left behind at micro levels—in terms of racial prejudice and discrimination—as well as macro levels, in differential patterns of socioeconomic status, access to health care, and rates of incarceration.

As much of the above discussion implies, social constructionists argue that what becomes accepted as common, everyday knowledge has less to do with truth, and more to do with the relative amounts of power held by those presenting competing realities. Berger and Luckmann (1966) write "the confrontation of alternative symbolic universes implies a problem of power—which of the conflicting definitions of reality will be 'made to stick' in the society" (p. 109). They then posit that "He who has the bigger stick has the better chance of imposing his definitions. This is a safe assumption to make with regard to any larger collectivity…" (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p. 109).

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, social constructionists believe that knowledge is created through social interaction. As a result, social constructionists focus on process and action rather than underlying structures or stable traits (Burr, 1995). Traditional sociologists, for example, might study marriage as a societal structure, whereas social constructionists will examine the patterns of interaction between people that establish such relationships. As Burr (1995) explains, for social constructionists "explanations are to be found neither in the individual psyche nor in social structures, but in the interactive processes that take place routinely between people" (p. 8). One particular type of social action that is of interest to many social constructionists is language. Many argue that language is the primary mechanism through which much of the social world is constructed, and therefore is more than a simple mode of expression.

Applications

As mentioned previously, social constructionism has made its mark across the academic disciplines. As a result, it has taken as its object of study nearly every conceivable topic, including but not limited to gender, personality, race, sexuality, politics, language, and religion. The following section is meant to serve as a brief introduction to the type of research being conducted by scholars who identify as social constructionists and is in no way representative of the field as a whole.

Gender & Sexuality Studies

Viewing gender and sexuality through a social constructionist lens is difficult for many. We tend to believe that our anatomy determines our gender and that sexuality is a matter of genetics. Social constructionists, however, believe gender and sexuality is constructed, in the same way as other aspects of our social lives.

Brickell (2006) reviews the many angles from which social constructionists have studied gender—using historicism, symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, and materialist feminism—and argues that the multiple perspectives strengthen our understanding of a complex topic. Historical analyses, for example, reveal that our current understanding of gender as binary—male and female—took the place of a "one sex model" in which women were defined as an "inside-out" variation of the male. Symbolic interactionists study the ways in which gendered selves are performances; they argue that people must "do their gender" appropriately, or risk social sanction. Such performances may also be imbued with power, so that "doing male" implies dominance while "doing female" means performing deference (Brickell, 2005). Material feminists focus on power relations and oppression more exclusively, examining the ways in which the relationship between men and women is one of inequality.

Burdge (2007) writes about gender and sexuality from a social work perspective, arguing that the transgender community experiences oppression as a result of society's binary definition of gender. She writes, "their very existence challenges the traditional gender dichotomy, and by stepping outside these fundamental social norms, they are vulnerable to discrimination and oppression" (p. 244). Burdge (2007) advises social workers to be sensitive to language, and honor the ways in which transgender individuals identify and define themselves. She advocates eliminating "gender identity disorder" from the American Psychiatric Association's “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”; the “DSM-V”, published in 2013, replaced "gender identity disorder" with "gender dysphoria" meaning “a marked difference between the individual’s expressed/experienced gender and the gender others would assign him or her" (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). She also supports educating the public about gender diversity, and increasing the visibility of the transgender community. Burdge (2007) uses social constructionism and queer theory to frame her discussion.

The Social Construction of Race

In addition to gender and sexuality, race is a topic that has received a great deal of attention from social constructionists. Guess (2006) argues, however, that scholars have focused almost exclusively on the social construction of "the other" or the "non-white" individual. "The sociology of race relations has historically failed to observe and report on the social construction of both sides of America's black/white binary paradigm when addressing racial inequality…[therefore, I give] special attention to the social construction of whiteness [and] the political significance of 'race' and whiteness in America" (Guess, 2006, p. 650). Guess (2006) looks at the ways in which the concept of race is informed by historical, cultural, social, and political values. The physical characteristics that constitute whiteness or blackness have no meaning in and of themselves, he argues. Rather, only when people ascribe value to these differences does the idea of race emerge. Stanfield (1985) explains, "race-making is a mode of stratification…It is premised on the ascription of moral, social, symbolic, and intellectual characteristics to real or manufactured phenotypical features which justify and give normality to the…societal dominance of one population over others" (as cited in Guess, 2006, p. 658).

Personality Reconsidered

Like gender and race, personality is an aspect of the self that is often taken for granted. Specifically, the traditional or common-sense notion of personality is an essentialist one; we believe that the kind of people we become is in some degree determined by our genes or biology, and that we have our own particular being or essence. Personality is assumed to be stable over time, and reflect individual differences between people (Burr, 1995). From a social constructionist perspective, however, personality doesn't exist within people as much as it does between them (Burr, 1995). Indeed, the words that are typically used to describe someone's personality—"friendly," "caring," "outgoing"—often lose meaning outside the context of relationships with others. And we often act differently from one situation to the next, with one group of people versus another. Burr (1995) writes "Instead, then, of people having single, unified and fixed selves, perhaps we are fragmented, having a multiplicity of potential selves which are not necessarily consistent with each other" (p. 29).

Viewpoints

As social constructionism has gained popularity in recent decades, the two primary objections to the theory have remained consistent. First and foremost, critics argue that social constructionism leads to relativism—the idea that all knowledge is equal, and cannot be true or false in any absolute sense. In other words, it leads to what proponents believe is an absurdist "anything goes" position, in which we are left unable to make any value judgments at all (Hibberd, 2005). Secondly, critics argue social constructionists undermine their own claims; if knowledge is relative, then social constructionism cannot be more correct or true than the position of positivists and essentialists. Thus their arguments are, in some sense, self-refuting. As Moore (2007) writes, "by doing its job, the sociology of knowledge does itself out of a job" (p. 28). Social constructionists counter by arguing that there are many different types of relativism, not all of which lead to self-refutation (Hibberd, 2005) and that many of the charges against them are made using language or concepts that belong to positivism, and therefore are not applicable. Neither side has gained a particular advantage over the other; indeed, the debate between the two different perspectives has been described as an "intellectual standoff" and will likely continue for some time to come (Hibberd, 2005).

Terms & Concepts

Ethnography: Social constructionism defies a singular definition; scholars argue that there are multiple social constructionisms, one of which is historicity. Although all social constructionisms have some core characteristics in common, they all approach their object of study in a slightly different way. Ethnographers observe people in their everyday lives, looking for the ways in which they create meaning through interaction and language.

Externalization: For Berger and Luckmann (1966) the process by which knowledge becomes reality, or taken for granted everyday knowledge, is threefold—it involves externalization, legitimization, and internalization, all of which are part of a dialectical relationship between an individual and the social world. Knowledge must begin when an individual acts, or externalizes, in the social world.

Habituation: For Berger and Luckmann (1966) the process by which knowledge becomes reality, or taken-for-granted everyday knowledge, is threefold—it involves externalization, legitimization, and internalization. When a person acts, or externalizes, in the social world, all such acts have the potential to become habituated. Habituated acts become "automatic," and are performed again and again without forethought.

Historicity: Social constructionism defies a singular definition; scholars argue that there multiple social constructionisms, one of which is historicity. Although all social constructionisms have some core characteristics in common, they all approach their object of study in a slightly different way. Historicism emphasizes the cultural, social, and historical relativity of knowledge, or the notion that its "truth" is dependent on time and place.

Institutionalization: According to Berger and Luckmann (1966), the habituated patterns of individuals externalizing in the world develop into institutions when the habituated patterns are reciprocated by others. Institutions exist only in relation to other people.

Internalization: For Berger and Luckmann (1966) the process by which knowledge becomes reality, or taken-for-granted everyday knowledge, is threefold—it involves externalization, legitimization, and internalization. Internalization occurs primarily through socialization—as a child, but throughout one's lifetime as well. Internalized knowledge becomes shared knowledge.

Positivism: Social constructionism developed in reaction to positivism. Positivists argue that there is an absolute and universal truth that exists independently of people, and that we are able to perceive this reality through our senses.

Relativism: One of the primary criticisms of social constructionism is the charge of relativism. If truth is relative to time, place, and person, then we cannot make value judgments about knowledge. We cannot know one claim is more or less true than another, and therefore, some would argue, we cannot come to know our world. Critics also argue that relativism leads to self-refutation; if knowledge is relative, then social constructionists cannot argue that their claims are any more true than those of positivists.

Social Interaction: Social constructionists believe knowledge and meaning are created by people through social interaction. Knowledge does not exist independently of people; rather, it is constructed through language and action.

Bibliography

American Psychiatric Association (2013). Gender dysphoria. Retrieved October 30, 2013 from http://www.dsm5.org/Documents/Gender%20Dysphoria%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

Andrews, T. (2012). What is social constructionism?. Grounded Theory Review, 11, 39-46. Retrieved October 30, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=77668326

Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. New York, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Brickell, C. (2006). The sociological construction of gender and sexuality. The Sociological Review, 54, 87-113. Retrieved June 17, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=20042912&site=ehost-live

Burdge, B. (2007). Bending gender, ending gender: Theoretical foundations for social work practice with the transgender community. Social Work, 54, 243-250. Retrieved June 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=26769115&site=ehost-live

Burr, V. (1995). An introduction to social constructionism. New York, NY: Routledge.

Cisneros-Puebla, C., & Faux, R. (2008). The deconstructive and reconstructive faces of social construction. Qualitative Social Research, 9, 1-15. Retrieved June 17, 2008 from EBSCO online database, SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=29973425&site=ehost-live

Elder-Vass, D. (2012). Towards a realist social constructionism. Sociologia, Problemas E Práticas, , 9-24. Retrieved October 30, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=85669989

Guess, T. (2006). The social construction of whiteness: Racism by intent, racism by consequence. Critical Sociology, 32, 649-673. Retrieved June 17, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=23457023&site=ehost-live

Hibberd, F. (2005). Unfolding social constructionism. New York, NY: Springer.

Moore, R. (2007). Going critical: The problem of problematizing knowledge in education studies. Critical Studies in Education, 48, 25-41. Retrieved June 17, 2008 from EBSCO online database Education Research Complete: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=24409677&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Adorjan, M. (2013). Igniting constructionist imaginations: Social constructionism's absence and potential contribution to public sociology. American Sociologist, 44, 1-22. Retrieved October 30, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=85411528

De Cecco, J., & Elia, J. (Eds.). (1993). If you seduce a straight person, can you make them gay? Issues in biological essentialism versus social constructionism in gay and lesbian identities. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.

Peterson, D. (2012). Where the sidewalk ends: The limits of social constructionism. Journal For The Theory Of Social Behaviour, 42, 465-484. Retrieved October 30, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=83710803

Searle, J. (1995). Construction of social reality. New York, NY: Freedom Press.