ABSTRACT

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.

chapter |18 pages

Introduction

The reality of social constructivism Introductory remarks

part I|2 pages

The theory of The Social Construction of Reality and its reception

chapter 3|10 pages

The cultural dimension of social constructions

On the meaning of “doings” and the meaning of “dones”

chapter 4|16 pages

The reality of material objectivations

On dwelling as a mode of internalization

chapter 5|14 pages

Social constructions through socialization

The perspective of a constructivist socialization research

chapter 6|13 pages

Objectification and verbalization

Social constructivism and the problem of language

part II|2 pages

The variety of constructivisms

chapter 8|21 pages

Variations of constructivism

chapter 9|13 pages

The social construction of technology

Where it came from and where it might be heading

chapter 12|9 pages

Autogenesis and autopoiesis

On the emergence of social reality in social and radical constructivism

chapter 13|19 pages

Knowledge as a form of the life-course

The general constructivism of social systems theory

chapter 14|16 pages

Oblivion of power?

The Social Construction of Reality and the (counter-) critique of Pierre Bourdieu

chapter 15|8 pages

Habitualization and habitus

On the relation between social constructivism and the theory of practice

chapter 16|14 pages

The Social Construction of Reality

Traces and transformation

part III|2 pages

Recent developments of social constructivism

chapter 18|18 pages

From understanding to impact

Communicative power

chapter |14 pages

Conclusion

The Social Construction of Reality as a paradigm? 1