A social constructivist approach to political identity assumes that we create realitiesand make these realities meaningfulby way of interaction. We come to know society by interacting with culturally significant others (such as parents, teachers, and doctors), institutions (such as churches, schools, and governments), and symbolic universes (such as capitalism, patriarchy, and Christianity). The approach frames knowledge as learned, situational, and fallible, and, as such, partial, consequential, and sometimes problematic.

Social constructivists attend to the processes in which realitiesand ...