ABSTRACT
Social roles, by their very nature, are socially constructed (Biddle, 1986; Coyne, 1984). This is a straightforward, noncontroversial statement. To call a social phenomenon socially constructed is to point out that that phenomenon is not an element of the natural world, and hence merits critical examination (Burr, 1995; Searle, 1995). The statement also suggests something even more obvious, but yet rarely explored: social and institutional roles have emerged through a process of construction. In other words, roles-both in how they are conceived or perceived, and in how they are performed-are historically constructed.
