There is significant confusion and conflation surrounding constructivist and
constructionist perspectives. Within both the ivist and the ionist categories there are many
summarized as follows: constructivism most accurately describes "epistemological
considerations focusing exclusively on the ‘meaning-making activity of the individual mind’"; constructionism "is used when the focus includes ‘the collective generation [and
transmission] of meaning’” (Crotty, 1998, p.58). These perspectives do not exist in isolation, but can be conceptualized as existing upon a continuum, with those focused on subject-centered meaning making (meaning making activity of the individual mind) at one end, and socially centered meaning making (social generation of meaning) at the other (Crotty, 1998).
Constructionism is not defined by clear cut boundaries, especially since it has been adopted by several different disciplines and has evolved in several directions at once (Gubrium & Holstein, 2008). Weinberg (2008) defines social constructionism as an attempt to demonstrate “how certain states of affairs that others have taken to be eternal and/or beyond the reach of social influence are actually products of specific
sociohistorical and/or social interactional processes” (pg. 14). The way that these 'states of affairs' are produced by sociohistorical and social interactional processes, to a large extent in the absence of the intent or consciousness of the individual, is the one of the main epistemological claims of social constructionism. Constructionism focuses on discourse and interaction as some of the methods through which meaning is produced in society. Discourse is a key term in constructionist theory and one which has many meanings; I understand discourse in the Foucauldian sense. Mills (2003) emphasizes the multiple and sometimes contradictory ways that Foucault uses the word “discourse”. One of the most widely cited definitions is found in The Archaeology of Knowledge (Foucault,
1972), and that is the definition I choose to work with. Foucault (1972) defines discourse as a group of institutionalized statements (including any type of utterance) about a particular topic (or object) that function socially by forming that topic. A discourse is a regulated group of statements that can combine with other discourses in predictable ways. There are
rules which lead to the distribution and circulation of certain utterances and statements … but rather than seeing discourse as simply a set of statements which have some coherence, we should think of a discourse as existing because of a
complex set of practices which try to keep them in circulation and other practices which try to keep other statements out of circulation. (Mills 2003, pg. 54)
According to Blood (2005), discourse, or group of statements is the manifestation of thought into language and can both transmit and produce power, defining the ways we can talk or think about a topic (or object), and therefore defining the truth of that topic (or object). Discourse shapes and constrains our ways of understanding the world, by acting as a system that structures our perceptions of reality. By understanding Foucault’s conception of the way that discourse operates, we can see that social construction (as it uses the methods of discourse and interaction- or the social process of discourse) can be used as a way to effect social change, especially by challenging authoritative accounts of the way the world is in order to foster participation in effecting change (Gergen, 1999). One of the seminal texts on social construction, The Social Construction of Reality, by
Berger and Luckmann (1966), declares that “language used in everyday life continuously provides me with the necessary objectifications and posits the order within which these make sense and within which everyday life has meaning for me” (pg. 22). Social construction also holds that discourse affects and is affected by social relationships, structures, and organization (Gergen, 1999). Through this statement, Gergen emphasizes the collective nature of meaning generation, through language and other social processes. The emphasis on the importance of discourse is particularly strong in psychological accounts of constructionism (Gergen, 1999; Hibberd, 2005), and postmodern (Saussure, 1983), and poststructuralist (Foucault, 1977) uses of constructionism. Sociological accounts of constructionism focus more on social interactions and processes (Gubrium & Holstein, 2008).
“Social processes” can be a vague and confusing term, perhaps best explained by Fish (1990). Crotty (1998) quotes Fish (1990) declaring that all objects are made through
society and convention, rather than simply found. There are social institutions and
conventions in which we are already embedded and through which we make meaning (constructivist) and meaning is made through us (constructionist): “these institutions are the source of the interpretive strategies whereby we construct meaning” (Crotty 1998, pg. 53).
From a social constructionist perspective, humans are understood to use meaning made by the social world and to interact with the world as it makes meaning through them, therefore the historical and social context of the world is revealed as important in this meaning-making activity (Crotty, 1998). From a social constructionist perspective, people do not make meaning by interacting with each and every phenomenon, they are born into a world full of cultural meaning and people come to make their own meaning through meanings and discourses that already exist (Crotty, 1998). Crotty (1998) offers a summary of this perspective:
We enter a social milieu in which a ‘system of intelligibility’ prevails. We inherit a ‘system of significant symbols’. For each of us, when we first see the world in meaningful fashion, we are inevitably viewing it through lenses bestowed upon us by our culture. Our culture brings things into view for us and endows them with meaning and, by the same token, leads us to ignore other things. (p.54)
Crotty warns against the misconception that the social in social constructionism refers to
the type of object that has meaning (for example, that a rock cannot be socially constructed). He clarifies that it refers to the way meaning is made (perhaps the rock itself was not made through social construction, but the way we understand what that rock is, what it can do, and how it can be used is socially constructed). For example, objects in the natural world have meaning that is made socially, and it is the social aspect which leads us to a particular interpretation of these objects, guiding our interpretation to emphasize and ignore certain other aspects.
3.2.1.1 Hacking’s (1999) constructionism.
Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking (1999) has written a persuasive text that asks the following critical questions of constructionist theory: What is socially constructed? How far does social construction stretch? Are there different types of social construction? Hacking identifies that most constructionist scholars start with the meaning, or definition, of social construction but do not ask what the point of social construction is. By
constructionism that is readily applicable to critical research. Hacking states that most social constructionist statements are based on local claims. A local claim is a claim about the constructed nature of a specific thing (X). Local claims may be influenced by
overarching claims, but their point is to raise consciousness about something specific (X). They are (in principle) independent of each other. For instance, an individual could
support the local claim that workplace gender roles are socially constructed, but refute the claim that starvation, or the boy scouts, or gravity is socially constructed. Hacking points out that it is a very different kind of social construction that sees danger as socially constructed than that which sees reality or women refugees as socially constructed. He thinks it is possible to see concepts as socially constructed, but objects as not constructed. That is not to say that the meaning, use, connotation, feeling etc. of the object is not constructed, just that the object itself is not constructed. Hacking cautions that most constructionists conflate the object with its meaning.
Hacking makes the astute observation that most people who use social construction want to show the arbitrary nature of a specific thing (X) as a starting point to criticize, change, or destroy. They might employ a social constructionist approach to recognize that X is taken for granted or established by the order of things, and then further use a
constructionist approach to uproot this opinion of X as inevitable, hoping to change the way that people think about X or the way in which X operates in the world. Within this observation, Hacking also notices that people seem to have grades of commitment to social construction, but there is little room in traditional constructionist theory to identify different levels of commitment. Commitment to social construction may be assessed by asking “what are we saying when we say X is socially constructed?” Hacking suggests that depending on our level of commitment to constructionism, we may be stating one or more of the following: X is taken for granted; X appears inevitable; X is not determined by the nature of things; X is not inevitable; X is quite bad as it currently is; X would be better if it was done away with or radically transformed. Hacking then expands this theory to include several different types of social construction.
Hacking's vision of social construction describes a perspective filled with infinite small differences, with the universalist notion of social construction on one end of the
continuum and what I will term “partial construction” on the other. Within this
continuum he identifies 6 stances: Historical, Ironic, Unmasking, Reformist, Rebellious, and Revolutionary (Hacking, 1999, p. 19).
3.2.1.2 How I understand constructionist theory.
Within Hacking’s work I am able to find an increasingly sure foothold for my own constructionist stance. I identify with the “Unmasking” type of social constructionism. Within this type of constructionism, I do not seek to refute ideas (necessarily) but to unmask them by exposing the function they serve, to strip them of their false appeal or false authority. Hacking identifies that some “Unmasking” constructionists may also (although not necessarily) be “Reformist” constructionists. Reformist constructionism believes that X is quite bad. They have no idea how to live without X but by
understanding that X is not inevitable, they can modify some aspects of it to make it less objectionable. While I identify mainly with the Unmasking stance, I also appreciate aspects of Reformist stance, particularly the hope to modify aspects of X.
I situate myself in a constructionism that recognizes the power of discourse and social institutions to shape the meanings that people live within. In order to recognize that discourse and institutions can have a real effect, one must embrace a certain amount of
what I have termed “partial world construction” after the writings of Hacking (1999) and Harris (2008). From Harris' (2008) objective sociological constructionism (OSC), I take the aspect which emphasizes that an individual’s understanding of her life, her self, and her world is influenced by the power exercised through social institutions, formal or informal. I draw from social constructionism an emphasis on the importance of discourse as the vehicle through which one articulates the parameters of her world and herself. I believe, like OSC thinkers, that these constructions have the power to effect real change; that family relationships are real, not just the “putative interpretations of relationships” and that many people experience the forces of racism, classism, ageism, and sexism as changing their realities, and not just their perception or interpretation of what is real.