Full Description
Social constructivism is one of the most prominent theoretical approaches in the social sciences. This volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of its first formulation in Peter Berger and Luckmann's classic foundational text, The Social Construction of Reality. Addressing the work's contribution to establishing social constructivism as a paradigm and discussing its potential for current questions in social theory, the contributing authors indicate the various cultural understandings and theoretical formulations that exist of social construction, its different fields of research and the promising new directions for future research that it presents in its most recent developments. A study of the importance of a work that established a paradigm in the international sociology of knowledge, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in social theory, the history of the social sciences and the significance of social constructivism.
Contents
Introduction: The Reality of Social Constructivism. Introductory Remarks
Part I: The Theory of "The Social Construction of Reality" and its Reception
1. Why are Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann Austrians?
2. The Theoretical Claims of The Social Construction of Reality
3. The Cultural Dimension of Social Constructions. On the Meaning of "Doings" and the Meaning of "Dones"
4. The Reality of Material Objectivations: On Dwelling as a Mode of Internalization
5. Social Constructions through Socialization. The Perspective of a Constructivist Socialization Research
6. Objectification and Verbalization. Social Constructivism and the Problem of Language
7. Some Reflections on Reception and Influence of Berger and Luckmann`s Book on Social Construction of Reality in the Spanish-Speaking World
Part II: The Variety of Constructivisms
8. Variations of Constructivism
9. The Social Construction of Technology: Where it Came From and Where it Might be Heading
10. The Concept of Alternation and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
11. From Pragmatism to Interactive Constructivism
12. Autogenesis and Autopoiesis. On the Emergence of Social Reality in Social and Radical Constructivism
13. Knowledge as a Form of the Life-Course - The General Constructivism of Social Systems Theory
14. Oblivion of Power? The Social Construction of Reality and the (Counter-) Critique of Pierre Bourdieu
15. Habitualization and Habitus - On the Relation between Social Constructivism and the Theory of Practice
16. The Social Construction of Reality: Traces and Transformation
Part III: Recent Developments of Social Constructivism
17. From the Social to the Communicative Construction of Reality
18. From Understanding to Impact: Communicative Power
19. The Discursive Construction of Realities
Conclusion: The Social Construction of Reality as a Paradigm?
