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An Invitation to Social Construction
From a leading figure in the field, this introductory text forms an elegant overview of social constructionism that is at once wide-ranging and accessible.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 2, 2012
Great concise overview of social constructionist philosophy (practice?). Recommended for anyone feeling like they're boxed in. Actually, it pretty much defines "out-of-the-box thinking". I found myself repulsed from it, yet simultaneously drawn to it. Has the potential to transform the way you look at the world. Will challenge you if you have a sciency orientation... you might just hate it. Goes very well with buddhist thought. Unfortunately it's priced as an academic textbook and just 186 pages of paperback.
October 27, 2023
"How can you reduce the complex, ever changing flow of consciousness to a single word like "sadness" or "love?"
"Further, you didn't choose the vocabulary with which to convey your internal states; all you have is the hand-medown vocabulary available within the culture. Are these words adequate to picture your states; and indeed, for what states are they pictures?"
"First, consider the way we understand our momentary daily lives in terms of "ups" and "downs," progress and setbacks, fulfillment and frustration. To see life in these ways is to participate in a storied world."
"The same may be said about the way others respond to us - at least our long-term acquaintances. We are typically treated by them as characters in a story, with a past, present, and future that are causally related, and moving in a direction - good or bad."
"Because we are treated by others as storied characters, we are often called upon to "tell our story," to recount our past, to identify where we have been and where we are going. In effect, we identify ourselves through narration. In this sense, narrative structures set certain limits over who we can be. To get a better grasp of the way in which narrative conventions fashion our sense of identity, it is useful to consider major forms of narrative convention. Such forms can be understood best by returning again to the first essential ingredient of the good story, the valued endpoint. To make sense of our lives, we typically posit some kind of endpoint or goal ("how I came to be X," "achieve Y," or "believe in Z"). Given the endpoint, try to envision a two-dimensional space in which all events are arrayed over time in terms of whether they move toward or away from the valued goal. To illustrate, consider two rudimentary narrative forms: the progressive narrative, in which the endpoint is positive (a success, victory, etc.), and the story is all about the events that lead up to achieving this valued state; and a regressive narrative,
in which the endpoint is negative (a failure, loss, etc.) and the story tells about continuous decline. While few of our stories about ourselves are pure examples of progressive and regressive narratives, they often approximate these cases. "How I won the match . . . came to this conclusion . . . achieved these results" and so on in the former case, and in the latter, "How my romance failed ... I was screwed over ... or ended up on drugs."
Fortunately these are not the only story forms available to us. Other popular variants of these more rudimentary forms include the happilyever-after narrative ("How after many difficult years, I finally ended up in a profession that is rewarding"), and a narrative that is often very attractive to males, the heroic saga narrative. In this case one understands one's life as a series of ups and downs - a struggle, perhaps, to achieve a goal, misfortune sets in, I struggle again toward victory, but again set-backs occur, until finally I win out. Two other popular narratives deserve mention. The first is the tragedy, in which someone in high position or at the point of success, falls rapidly into despair or failure. More mundanely, if my computer crashes and takes my manuscript copy with it, and I shout a curse, I am giving expression to a tragic narrative - at the peak of production I am brought low. Finally, almost all prime-time television dramas take the form of what might be called a comedyromance. In this case a positive state of affairs is interrupted by a calamity (for example, a crime, an error of judgement, afaux pas), and the remainder of the story is occupied with a series of events that finally restore order and tranquillity. Perhaps you are one of those many people who understand their daily lives in this way - constructing your world so that you begin strong in the morning, run into problems, snags, and glitches during the day, and then attempt to "dig out" so that by bedtime the day has come to a happy conclusion."
"As scientific communities have grown strong, so have they developed specialized vocabularies, methodologies, modes of analysis and practices of reason. Thus, we confront the emergence of a new "knowledge class," groups who claim superiority of voice over all others. Further, without initiation into the class (typically through an advanced degree) one cannot challenge these claims."
"What is essential for a relationship to occur? In the present context, this question can be answered in terms of ontology and ethics; that is, we must have a set of shared understandings - even if primitive - of what exists ("the real") and of what constitutes proper conduct ("the good"). More concretely a shared ontology is largely the byproduct of a common language. At the extreme, if you communicate to me only in Chinese and I can reply only in English, we shall scarcely be able to generate a relationship. Or more locally, if your world is made up of angels, divine spirits, and evil powers, and mine is composed of neurons, synapses, and endorphins, our mutually exclusive ontologies will make it difficult for us to communicate."
"...why do we presume there is human development - a direction or a goal toward which we are travelling?"
"The story we tell about our children - and indeed ourselves - over time seems to be one in which we are (or should be) moving toward some ideal. But why this narrative in particular? It is not one shared by the Hindus, for example, who hold human life to be in a continuous state of repetition. Nor was it a significant feature of early Greek culture, when historical narratives either personal or cultural - were scarcely evidenced."
"Some years ago I had the privilege of traveling in Morocco. Perhaps the most dramatic experiences there resulted from excursions into the Medinas of Marrakech and Fez. The Medina is the ancient quarter of the city, a complex tangle of narrow streets and walkways - open shops, unlighted dwellings, craftsmen, working children, open sewers, laden donkeys, exotic sounds and smells, and the continuous jostling on the crowded streets - all concatenating into an overwhelming sensory experience. For me this truly was a “foreign culture," and it was unceasingly fascinating. I was particularly interested in the fact of my own safety. I was clearly an alien in their midst - a literal infidel - carrying a camera that was probably worth a year's wages to many. And I was clearly unfamiliar with my surrounds, wandering, unsure of my direction. Why wasn't I robbed, or worse? Who would ever discover the crime; and would it
even be a crime in their eyes? These musings then gave way to startling reflection: why did I find my safety such a matter of curiosity? What was this fact saying about me, and my home culture? Did it not suggest that I lived in a culture of pervasive distrust, where economic differences were resented, and where there was insufficient community to unite around a vision of the good?"
"In a similar vein, explorations of other cultures draw us into questions of similarity and difference.
We are fascinated by what we share, and the ways in which we are alien. However, all such distinctions are drawn from our own vernaculars, the conventions of construction with which we attempt to make sense of the other. And such distinctions are necessarily saturated with the values they sustain. Thus every telling of similarity and difference - every assay of the other - is not so much a reflection of the real as it is a reflection of our own modes of being. To read the other is to make manifest our own existence - how it is we construct the world and with what end. And herein lies opportunity to move beyond."
"If what is most central to me is within - mine and mine alone - then how am I to regard you? At the outset, you are fundamentally "other" - an alien who exists separately from me. I am essentially alone, I come into the world as an isolated being and leave alone. Further, you can never fully know or understand that which Iam, for it is never fully available to you, never fully revealed. There can never be another who fully understands me in my isolation."
"Selves can only exist in relationship to other selves."
"By taking the role of the other, as he or she responds to actions, I come to understand who and what I
am. Over time I my come to develop a sense of a generalized other, that is, a composite of others' reactions to me across situations. It is out of the sense of the generalized other that I develop a coherent sense of self, or "what I truly am." Because each of us draws our sense of self from others, we are thus thoroughly interrelated. For Mead, "No hard-and-fast line can be drawn between our own selves and the selves of others, since our own selves exist and enter as such into our experience only in so far as the selves of others exist and enter as such in our experience also."
"For Mead there is a "temporal and logical pre-existence of the social process to the self-conscious individual that arises in it." That is, how we think about the world and self is ultimately determined by others; without their having views of us, we could have no conception of ourselves."
"...folk beliefs are carried within the mind as narratives; that is, we understand others by thinking in narratives. We think, for example, "Alex became angry because he wanted the prize, and Suzie won; that's why he isn't speaking to Suzie." Further, proposes Bruner, these mental narratives organize the way we experience the world, and regulate our feelings. Because of our narrative knowledge we understand which feelings are appropriate on a given occasion and which are not. "Indeed the very shape of our lives - the rough and perpetually changing draft of our autobiography that we carry in our minds - is understandable to ourselves and to others only by virtue of (our) cultural systems of interpretation."
"Thus, as we learn language we come to experience the world in ways that effectively "blind" us to its nuances. Our experiences are inevitably colored by the social - and most directly - the linguistic world in which we are immersed."
"...what is recalled about a historical figure or event in a given nation may be distributed not only across a range of conversations, but across textbooks, newspapers, television productions, and film.29 In this sense, history is crafted by a collectivity, and as every savvy politician knows, thereby always subject to reconstruction."
"Others resist the strong emphasis on goals, arguing that the view of life as a "set of tasks," or accomplishments - complete with measures of progress - does not leave enough room for spontaneous, joyous, and sensual play."
"...internalized others. We possess many feelings and attitudes acquired from our relationships with others. What we say on any occasion - even when we are convinced that it is "my belief" - is often
reflecting a voice we have appropriated from another. Thus, with a little effort, we can often locate alternatives that we find plausible; we thus become more flexible and can see alternative ways to go on."
"In one form or another, it is proposed, we are the unwilling victims of a barrage of communication - largely associated with the mass media. And this communication constructs a world for us - of glamour, excitement, knowledge, fulfillment, and so on. It attempts to appropriate us, to transform our thoughts and desires and ultimately our buying habits, political preferences, and more general ways of life.
We are the victims of mass manipulation."
"Whenever we hold firm to a particular account of the real, we seal ourselves off from other possibilities. In this sense, what is most obvious to us - most fully compelling at any given time - is also most delimiting. If the earth simply is flat, a once obvious fact, there is no room for those who wish to explore the potentials of "round;" for those who believe the grass truly is green, there is little room for psychophysiological research on color as a psychological phenomenon resulting from light reflected on the retina; or for those who believe that stones are solid, there is no reason to suspect that they might also be composed of molecular particles, the position of a contemporary physicist. Each commitment to the real eliminates a rich sea of alternatives, and by quieting alternative discourses we limit possibilities of action."
"Whether one challenges the rational credentials of a particular judgment or of a whole realm of discourse, one has to rely at some level on judgments and methods of argument which one believes are not themselves subject to the same challenge: which exemplify, even when they err, something more fundamental and which can be corrected only by further procedures of the same kind."
"One central focus of constructionism is on meaning as solidified within a group, and the dangers involved in fixing a particular version of the real and the good. As proposed, once a group of people enter into a "way of understanding," it is difficult to comprehend or appreciate those who don't agree."
"Further, you didn't choose the vocabulary with which to convey your internal states; all you have is the hand-medown vocabulary available within the culture. Are these words adequate to picture your states; and indeed, for what states are they pictures?"
"First, consider the way we understand our momentary daily lives in terms of "ups" and "downs," progress and setbacks, fulfillment and frustration. To see life in these ways is to participate in a storied world."
"The same may be said about the way others respond to us - at least our long-term acquaintances. We are typically treated by them as characters in a story, with a past, present, and future that are causally related, and moving in a direction - good or bad."
"Because we are treated by others as storied characters, we are often called upon to "tell our story," to recount our past, to identify where we have been and where we are going. In effect, we identify ourselves through narration. In this sense, narrative structures set certain limits over who we can be. To get a better grasp of the way in which narrative conventions fashion our sense of identity, it is useful to consider major forms of narrative convention. Such forms can be understood best by returning again to the first essential ingredient of the good story, the valued endpoint. To make sense of our lives, we typically posit some kind of endpoint or goal ("how I came to be X," "achieve Y," or "believe in Z"). Given the endpoint, try to envision a two-dimensional space in which all events are arrayed over time in terms of whether they move toward or away from the valued goal. To illustrate, consider two rudimentary narrative forms: the progressive narrative, in which the endpoint is positive (a success, victory, etc.), and the story is all about the events that lead up to achieving this valued state; and a regressive narrative,
in which the endpoint is negative (a failure, loss, etc.) and the story tells about continuous decline. While few of our stories about ourselves are pure examples of progressive and regressive narratives, they often approximate these cases. "How I won the match . . . came to this conclusion . . . achieved these results" and so on in the former case, and in the latter, "How my romance failed ... I was screwed over ... or ended up on drugs."
Fortunately these are not the only story forms available to us. Other popular variants of these more rudimentary forms include the happilyever-after narrative ("How after many difficult years, I finally ended up in a profession that is rewarding"), and a narrative that is often very attractive to males, the heroic saga narrative. In this case one understands one's life as a series of ups and downs - a struggle, perhaps, to achieve a goal, misfortune sets in, I struggle again toward victory, but again set-backs occur, until finally I win out. Two other popular narratives deserve mention. The first is the tragedy, in which someone in high position or at the point of success, falls rapidly into despair or failure. More mundanely, if my computer crashes and takes my manuscript copy with it, and I shout a curse, I am giving expression to a tragic narrative - at the peak of production I am brought low. Finally, almost all prime-time television dramas take the form of what might be called a comedyromance. In this case a positive state of affairs is interrupted by a calamity (for example, a crime, an error of judgement, afaux pas), and the remainder of the story is occupied with a series of events that finally restore order and tranquillity. Perhaps you are one of those many people who understand their daily lives in this way - constructing your world so that you begin strong in the morning, run into problems, snags, and glitches during the day, and then attempt to "dig out" so that by bedtime the day has come to a happy conclusion."
"As scientific communities have grown strong, so have they developed specialized vocabularies, methodologies, modes of analysis and practices of reason. Thus, we confront the emergence of a new "knowledge class," groups who claim superiority of voice over all others. Further, without initiation into the class (typically through an advanced degree) one cannot challenge these claims."
"What is essential for a relationship to occur? In the present context, this question can be answered in terms of ontology and ethics; that is, we must have a set of shared understandings - even if primitive - of what exists ("the real") and of what constitutes proper conduct ("the good"). More concretely a shared ontology is largely the byproduct of a common language. At the extreme, if you communicate to me only in Chinese and I can reply only in English, we shall scarcely be able to generate a relationship. Or more locally, if your world is made up of angels, divine spirits, and evil powers, and mine is composed of neurons, synapses, and endorphins, our mutually exclusive ontologies will make it difficult for us to communicate."
"...why do we presume there is human development - a direction or a goal toward which we are travelling?"
"The story we tell about our children - and indeed ourselves - over time seems to be one in which we are (or should be) moving toward some ideal. But why this narrative in particular? It is not one shared by the Hindus, for example, who hold human life to be in a continuous state of repetition. Nor was it a significant feature of early Greek culture, when historical narratives either personal or cultural - were scarcely evidenced."
"Some years ago I had the privilege of traveling in Morocco. Perhaps the most dramatic experiences there resulted from excursions into the Medinas of Marrakech and Fez. The Medina is the ancient quarter of the city, a complex tangle of narrow streets and walkways - open shops, unlighted dwellings, craftsmen, working children, open sewers, laden donkeys, exotic sounds and smells, and the continuous jostling on the crowded streets - all concatenating into an overwhelming sensory experience. For me this truly was a “foreign culture," and it was unceasingly fascinating. I was particularly interested in the fact of my own safety. I was clearly an alien in their midst - a literal infidel - carrying a camera that was probably worth a year's wages to many. And I was clearly unfamiliar with my surrounds, wandering, unsure of my direction. Why wasn't I robbed, or worse? Who would ever discover the crime; and would it
even be a crime in their eyes? These musings then gave way to startling reflection: why did I find my safety such a matter of curiosity? What was this fact saying about me, and my home culture? Did it not suggest that I lived in a culture of pervasive distrust, where economic differences were resented, and where there was insufficient community to unite around a vision of the good?"
"In a similar vein, explorations of other cultures draw us into questions of similarity and difference.
We are fascinated by what we share, and the ways in which we are alien. However, all such distinctions are drawn from our own vernaculars, the conventions of construction with which we attempt to make sense of the other. And such distinctions are necessarily saturated with the values they sustain. Thus every telling of similarity and difference - every assay of the other - is not so much a reflection of the real as it is a reflection of our own modes of being. To read the other is to make manifest our own existence - how it is we construct the world and with what end. And herein lies opportunity to move beyond."
"If what is most central to me is within - mine and mine alone - then how am I to regard you? At the outset, you are fundamentally "other" - an alien who exists separately from me. I am essentially alone, I come into the world as an isolated being and leave alone. Further, you can never fully know or understand that which Iam, for it is never fully available to you, never fully revealed. There can never be another who fully understands me in my isolation."
"Selves can only exist in relationship to other selves."
"By taking the role of the other, as he or she responds to actions, I come to understand who and what I
am. Over time I my come to develop a sense of a generalized other, that is, a composite of others' reactions to me across situations. It is out of the sense of the generalized other that I develop a coherent sense of self, or "what I truly am." Because each of us draws our sense of self from others, we are thus thoroughly interrelated. For Mead, "No hard-and-fast line can be drawn between our own selves and the selves of others, since our own selves exist and enter as such into our experience only in so far as the selves of others exist and enter as such in our experience also."
"For Mead there is a "temporal and logical pre-existence of the social process to the self-conscious individual that arises in it." That is, how we think about the world and self is ultimately determined by others; without their having views of us, we could have no conception of ourselves."
"...folk beliefs are carried within the mind as narratives; that is, we understand others by thinking in narratives. We think, for example, "Alex became angry because he wanted the prize, and Suzie won; that's why he isn't speaking to Suzie." Further, proposes Bruner, these mental narratives organize the way we experience the world, and regulate our feelings. Because of our narrative knowledge we understand which feelings are appropriate on a given occasion and which are not. "Indeed the very shape of our lives - the rough and perpetually changing draft of our autobiography that we carry in our minds - is understandable to ourselves and to others only by virtue of (our) cultural systems of interpretation."
"Thus, as we learn language we come to experience the world in ways that effectively "blind" us to its nuances. Our experiences are inevitably colored by the social - and most directly - the linguistic world in which we are immersed."
"...what is recalled about a historical figure or event in a given nation may be distributed not only across a range of conversations, but across textbooks, newspapers, television productions, and film.29 In this sense, history is crafted by a collectivity, and as every savvy politician knows, thereby always subject to reconstruction."
"Others resist the strong emphasis on goals, arguing that the view of life as a "set of tasks," or accomplishments - complete with measures of progress - does not leave enough room for spontaneous, joyous, and sensual play."
"...internalized others. We possess many feelings and attitudes acquired from our relationships with others. What we say on any occasion - even when we are convinced that it is "my belief" - is often
reflecting a voice we have appropriated from another. Thus, with a little effort, we can often locate alternatives that we find plausible; we thus become more flexible and can see alternative ways to go on."
"In one form or another, it is proposed, we are the unwilling victims of a barrage of communication - largely associated with the mass media. And this communication constructs a world for us - of glamour, excitement, knowledge, fulfillment, and so on. It attempts to appropriate us, to transform our thoughts and desires and ultimately our buying habits, political preferences, and more general ways of life.
We are the victims of mass manipulation."
"Whenever we hold firm to a particular account of the real, we seal ourselves off from other possibilities. In this sense, what is most obvious to us - most fully compelling at any given time - is also most delimiting. If the earth simply is flat, a once obvious fact, there is no room for those who wish to explore the potentials of "round;" for those who believe the grass truly is green, there is little room for psychophysiological research on color as a psychological phenomenon resulting from light reflected on the retina; or for those who believe that stones are solid, there is no reason to suspect that they might also be composed of molecular particles, the position of a contemporary physicist. Each commitment to the real eliminates a rich sea of alternatives, and by quieting alternative discourses we limit possibilities of action."
"Whether one challenges the rational credentials of a particular judgment or of a whole realm of discourse, one has to rely at some level on judgments and methods of argument which one believes are not themselves subject to the same challenge: which exemplify, even when they err, something more fundamental and which can be corrected only by further procedures of the same kind."
"One central focus of constructionism is on meaning as solidified within a group, and the dangers involved in fixing a particular version of the real and the good. As proposed, once a group of people enter into a "way of understanding," it is difficult to comprehend or appreciate those who don't agree."
January 11, 2026
read it for a class. this book stuck with me and is worth re reading.
June 4, 2022
The most accessible book on the subject I've read to date.
I felt truly invited to the world without objective truth, to the life where everything is a narrative. Everything depends on how you narrate. Everything is constructed, so everything can be de- and/or re-constructed. In theory.
According to the author, construction of today's Western society began in the era of Enlightenment, and everything we live with now has its roots back then.
All there is - the author claims - is a language. No truth, just inperfect representation of everything through the language. It all depends on who is describing and which set of symbolic tools is using.
In big parts it makes sense for me. I was intrigued by constructionist approach to sciences - not only social, but natural sciences too. I tend to agree with the author's critique of today's scientists and their elitist behaviour towards us - ordinary people. People who don't know.
I really liked the paragraph explaining sudden rise of antidepressants. I am with the author when he is describing construction of mental illness within our modern society (I really want to read more about medieval society's approaches to people with mental health issues) and that homosexuality was PENALISED by Western society only a few dozen years ago. It gives you some perspective.
There is obviously a critique of social constructionism, and I have some doubts and needs for deeper, better, more clear explanations. The last chapter of the book deals with some of that critique and tries to answer some questions asked.
For me 'An Invitation to Social Construction' is brilliant starting point to explore complex mechanisms of (not only contemporary) societies.
I felt truly invited to the world without objective truth, to the life where everything is a narrative. Everything depends on how you narrate. Everything is constructed, so everything can be de- and/or re-constructed. In theory.
According to the author, construction of today's Western society began in the era of Enlightenment, and everything we live with now has its roots back then.
All there is - the author claims - is a language. No truth, just inperfect representation of everything through the language. It all depends on who is describing and which set of symbolic tools is using.
In big parts it makes sense for me. I was intrigued by constructionist approach to sciences - not only social, but natural sciences too. I tend to agree with the author's critique of today's scientists and their elitist behaviour towards us - ordinary people. People who don't know.
I really liked the paragraph explaining sudden rise of antidepressants. I am with the author when he is describing construction of mental illness within our modern society (I really want to read more about medieval society's approaches to people with mental health issues) and that homosexuality was PENALISED by Western society only a few dozen years ago. It gives you some perspective.
There is obviously a critique of social constructionism, and I have some doubts and needs for deeper, better, more clear explanations. The last chapter of the book deals with some of that critique and tries to answer some questions asked.
For me 'An Invitation to Social Construction' is brilliant starting point to explore complex mechanisms of (not only contemporary) societies.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews