Social constructionism does far more than unsettle our traditional beliefs in truth, objectivity, and knowledge; thrown into question is also the right of any particular group to claim it has the ultimate authority to any form of knowledge. Such a conclusion has enormous repercussions in the academic community and beyond. This Reader introduces a number of important contributions to contemporary constructionism and charts the development of thought from its very beginnings. The 34 excerpts represent the major viewpoints central to social constructionism including the voices of 42 prominent scholars in philosophy, ethnography, cultural studies, feminist thought and the wider social sciences. In concert with K J Gergen's Invitation to Social Construction (SAGE, 1999), or as a stand-alone text, it is a compendium of achievements in the field and will be an invaluable resource for students. Introductory essays by the editors give intellectual coherence to these diverse pieces and allow greater insight into emergent trends. Social Construction: A Reader will be required reading on courses across the social sciences but especially psychology, sociology, communication studies, cultural studies, human sciences and education.
Dr. Gergen is Professor Emerita at Penn State University, Brandywine, in the Philadelphia area. She has taught courses in many subfields in psychology and in Women's Studies. Her major academic focus has been on social constructionist theory and feminism. Currently she is an officer in the Taos Institute, a non-profit educational organization. She also advises Ph.D. students in applied social science fields. Her work has taken her to many countries around the glove, most recently Nanjing, China. Recent collaborators include Kenneth J. Gergen and Ellen Cole. Kenneth J. Gergen is a Senior Research Professor in Psychology at Swarthmore College, and the President of the Taos Institute. He is internationally known for his contributions to social constructionist theory, technology and cultural change, the self, aging, education, and relational theory and practices. His major writings include, Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, and Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. His most recent work Beyond the Tyranny of Testing: Relational Evaluation in Education (with Scherto Gill) offers a relational constructionist alternative to the destructive practices of testing and grading in education. Gergen lectures throughout the world, and has received numerous awards for his work, including honorary degrees in both the U.S. and Europe.
PART ONE: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE REAL AND THE GOOD Introduction On Scientific Paradigms - Thomas S Kuhn Socially Negotiating Knowledge - Harold Garfinkel Knowledge As Socially Constructed - Kenneth J Gergen Knowledge As a Language Game - Ludwig Wittgenstein Economics As Rhetoric - Diedre N McCloskey Knowledge As a Numbers Game - Gudmund R Iversen The Egg and the Sperm - Emily Martin Knowledge As Ideology PART TWO: CONSTRUCTING THE PERSON: CULTURE AND CRITIQUE Introduction Emotion - Catherine A Lutz The Universal As Local The Meanings of Pain - David Morris Power and Confession - Michel Foucault Learning to Labour - Paul Willis PART THREE: HORIZONS OF INQUIRY Introduction Life Stories - Mary Gergen Pieces of a Dream The Secret Life in a Culture of Thinness - Lisa M Tillmann-Healy Troubling the Angels - Patti Lather and Chris Smithies Silent Voices - Karen V Fox A Subversive Reading of Child Sexual Abuse Together Against the Computer - Gustavo I de Roux Glimpses of Street Children through Short Stories - Marcelo Diversi PART FOUR: THE RELATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF Introduction Possessive Individualism and the Self-Contained Ideal - Edward E Sampson Identity, Deconstruction and Politics - Judith Butler The Social Construction of Remembering and Forgetting - John Shotter The Relational Reconstruction of Repression - Michael Billig The Social Construction of Emotion - Rom Harr[ac]e Meaning in Relationship - Kenneth J Gergen PART FIVE: PROFUSIONS OF PRACTICE Introduction Narrative Therapy and Externalizing the Problem - Michael White Culture of Education - Jerome Bruner Appreciative Inquiry - David L Cooperrider and Diana Whitney From Stuck Debate to New Conversation - Carol Becker et al PART SIX: READING CULTURE Introduction The World of Wrestling - Roland Barthes The Lone Ranger, Barbar and Other Innocent Heroes - Ariel Dorfman Style in Revolt - Dick Hebdige Revolting Style Post-Colonial Feminism and the Veil - Lama Abu Odeh Thinking the Difference PART SEVEN: CONSTRUCTIONISM IN QUESTION Introduction Death and Furniture - Derek Edwards, Malcolm Ashmore and Jonathan Potter Arguments against Relativism Relativism and Feminist Psychology - Alexa Hepburn Sexual Orientation - Janis S Bohan and Glenda M Russell Essential and Constructed
