Constructivism

Constructivism Versus Constructionism

It is important to recognize that constructivism is not quite the same as constructionism, another widely held theory of knowledge with which constructivism is often confused. Although the terms are related, they differ in the extent to which an individual’s agency is emphasized. Constructionism takes as its point of reference society in general rather than a single individual or encounter. In the constructionist scheme, knowledge is the result of largely arbitrary social conventions that impose certain constraints on how the society takes shape: how it distributes societal roles, apportions power, conditions what counts as knowledge, and [Page 117]generates common practices and ways of thinking to which people conform. In this way, constructionism offers a macro perspective from which to analyze the general functioning of knowledge in society. Constructivism, on the other hand, offers a micro perspective, as it peers in on the ways social conventions are enacted on a person-to-person scale. Constructivism places the individual at the center of analysis, illuminating the process by which prior knowledge interacts with environmental factors, such as verbal cues, gestures, objects, others’ ideas, and the conventions of the social activity.

While the two views are not incompatible, they do reflect distinct analytical aims. In constructionists’ attempt to understand shared social knowledge as historically produced and perpetuated, the analytical focus is on how that knowledge emerges from broad sociohistorical forces. This broad perspective, however, tends to conceal the process by which individuals integrate new knowledge into their existing knowledge. Constructivism, then, highlights the way shared social knowledge becomes individualized through a process of internalization and integration. As multiple people engage in this internalization process, shared social knowledge necessarily changes, and over time, so do the social conventions. Seen in this way, constructionism and constructivism can be understood as complementary perspectives on the interaction between individuals and socially constructed knowledge.

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