Social construction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A social construction or social construct is any phenomenon "invented" or "constructed" by participants in a particular culture or society, existing because people agree to behave as if it exists or follow certain conventional rules. One example of a social construct is social status. Another example of social construction is the use of money, which is worth anything only because society has agreed to treat it as valuable.
Social constructionism is a school of thought which deals with detecting and analyzing social constructions.
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[edit] Definition
Emile Durkheim first theorised about social construction in his anthropological work on collective behavior, but did not coin the term. The first book with "social construction" in its title was Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality, first published in 1966. Since then, the term found its way into the mainstream of the social sciences.
The idea of Berger and Luckmann's Social Construction of Reality was that actors interacting together form, over time, typifications or mental representations of each other's actions, and that these typifications eventually become habitualized into reciprocal roles played by the actors in relation to each other. When these reciprocal roles become routinized, the typified reciprocal interactions are said to be institutionalized. In the process of this institutionalization, meaning is embedded and institutionalized into individuals and society - knowledge and people's conception of (and therefore belief regarding) what reality 'is' becomes embedded into the institutional fabric and structure of society, and social reality is therefore said to be socially constructed. For further discussion of key concepts related to social construction, see social constructionism and deconstruction.
[edit] Social constructs and language
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Pinker (2002, p. 202) writes that "some categories really are social constructions: they exist only because people tacitly agree to act as if they exist". He goes on to say, however: "But, that does not mean that all conceptual categories are socially constructed" (italics his). Both Hacking and Pinker agree that the sorts of objects indicated here can be described as part of what John Searle calls "social reality". In particular, they are, in Searle's terms, ontologically subjective but epistemologically objective. Informally, they require human practices to sustain their existence, but they have an effect that is (basically) universally agreed upon. The disagreement lies in whether this category should be called "socially constructed". Hacking (1997) argues that it should not.
[edit] Social constructs and gender
Gender studies often examine gender and gender roles as social constructs. These studies are done to determine, as well as present, the effects that built-in ideas such as men and women's clothing and perceptions of "appropriate" gender behavior for either sex has on a person's self-identification as male or female.
[edit] Social construct theory of ADHD
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a developmental, neurobehavioural disorder, widely recognized[1] by the medical and scientific community as causing impairment, especially in children. The social construct theory of ADHD rejects the dominant medical opinion that ADHD has a physiological basis and genetic components. Instead, the social construct theory proposes that the behavior observed in individuals with ADHD can be ascribed to environmental causes, specially conventional schools of the educational system, or the personality of the person.[2] Although ADHD is considered a well-validated clinical diagnosis by the medical community,[3][4][5] supporters of the social construct theory do not believe that ADHD is an objective disorder, but is instead a 'construct': an arbitrary division between "normal" and "abnormal" on a continuous spectrum of behavior. Supporters of the social construct theory maintain that ADHD was "invented and not discovered."[6]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "[hhttp://consensus.nih.gov/1998/1998AttentionDeficitHyperactivityDisorder110htm Diagnosis and Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder]". NIH Consensus Statement Online. 1998 Nov 16-18. hhttp://consensus.nih.gov/1998/1998AttentionDeficitHyperactivityDisorder110htm. Retrieved on May 21, 2009.
- ^ National Institute of Clinical Excellence (2009). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: THE NICE GUIDELINE ON DIAGNOSIS AND MANAGEMENT OF ADHD IN CHILDREN,YOUNG PEOPLE AND ADULTS. NHS. pp. 121. http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/ADHDFullGuideline.pdf. Retrieved on May 13,2009.
- ^ Mayes R, Bagwell C, Erkulwater J (2008). "ADHD and the rise in stimulant use among children". Harv Rev Psychiatry 16 (3): 151–66. doi:. PMID 18569037.
- ^ Foreman, D. M. (2006). "Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: legal and ethical aspects" (REVIEW, full text). Archives of Disease in Childhood 91 (2): 192–94. doi:. PMID 16428370. http://adc.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/91/2/192?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=ADHD&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT.
- ^ Kollins SH (2007). "Abuse liability of medications used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)". Am J Addict 16 Suppl 1: 35–42; quiz 43–4. doi:. PMID 17453605.
- ^ http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/ADHDisbogus.html Extract from Nexus Magazine, Australia, by Bob Jacobs, PsyD, JD © September 2004
