Social Constructionism

Social constructionism is a philosophy that attempts to make sense of reality. Social constructionism as a social scientific method originated in the latter half of the 20th century and often is associated with postmodern thought. Social constructionism as a scientific term first entered the academic lexicon with the publication of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman’s The Social Construction of Reality in 1966. Rooted in both sociological and psychological theory, social constructionism is a philosophical system that draws its method from a number of philosophical and scientific disciplines, including anthropology, critical analysis, hermeneutics, phenomenology, psychology, semiotics, and sociology, among others. Social constructionism asserts that knowledge is social in origin; knowledge is not predetermined by some natural order. Therefore, social constructionism can be viewed as antithetical to ...