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Using examples of your choice, describe and explain social constructionism
In this essay I will endeavour to approach the concept of social constructionism
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“There is no one feature,
which could be said to identify a social constructionist position” (Burr, 2003:2)
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This
essay will eventually conclude by summarising the main points of the concept of social
constructionism
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“Constructionism is not a unified perspective, and there are
differences within the general approach
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These differences can also be
called ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ social construction viewpoints, ‘hard’ social construction being ‘radical
constructionism’
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Therefore, what we think of as the truth is actually
only our current understanding of the world we live in
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Power relations are relationships where one
person or party has an unequal advantage of power over the other person or party
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As social constructions feel “natural” and
“unquestionable” they are very powerful (May, 2011)
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Due to this, “social constructionism insists
that we take a critical stance toward our taken-for-granted ways of understanding the world” (Burr
2003:2)
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Philippe Aries (1960) shows how childhood is socially constructed through his two concepts of
childhood
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Children were seen as miniature adults, as when a child was able to live
“without the constant solicitude of his mother, his nanny or his cradle-rocker, he belonged to adult
society” (Aries, 1960)
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At this time children were seen as the ‘Dionysian child’ and so were thought to be
innately evil and in need of strict authority, however, as the social ideas around childhood changed,
the meaning of childhood changed along with it and children started to be thought of as the
‘Apollonian child’ and innately good
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“A new
concept of childhood had appeared, in which the child, on account of his sweetness, simplicity and
drollery, became a source of amusement and relaxation for the adult”
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These two
concepts show the different ways in which the social construction of childhood is interpreted,
understood and “socially institutionalised for children by adults” (James and James, 2004:13) and
how this varies greatly between different times and cultures
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This can be illustrated by Piaget’s (1973) ages and stages model, which
can be seen as a social construction of what children are expected to do when they reach certain
milestones
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This argument that childhood is a concept formed out of power
relations between adults and children can be shown by adult/child relationships being binary
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This is not a good thing as
“Binaries provide ideological justification for social inequality” (Elliot, 2010:196)
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This is
because in Law childhood is seen as a “universal, but specific, social and legal category which is, and
needs to be, distinguishable from adulthood” (James and James, 2004:65)
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It could be argued that childhood, because of this reason,
is a necessary construction as it protects the child from the adult world
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“Most
people adamantly believe that they choose what they do with their bodies and that these choices
exist wholly outside of social forces that govern the conditions within which they make such
choices
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However, this is not actually the case, as what we do is subject to culture
and also subject to history
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” (Fahs 2011:485)
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Before this time
it was not socially acceptable for women to show their bodies in public and women wore dresses to
hide their bodies
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It was not until after the 1950s that this
social norm became uniform in our society
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In modern society male celebrities have adopted the
colour pink to try and reverse gender constructions
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Sexuality also wasn’t really apparent until after the 1920s as advertising plays a big role
in informing people about different sexualities
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This is a problem as there is no official documentation about it, like there is in
modern Britain, for example the census
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This
does only show people’s interests rather than the actual social norms around sexuality which is
restrictive (Bhattacharyya, 2002)
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yet the term ‘sexuality’ was invented in the nineteenth century by a
new occupation group called ‘sexologists’” (May 2011:7)
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Social constructions are in their essence powerful and
Foucault (1979) would argue that power is everywhere and comes from everywhere
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Sociologists have suggested that disease is socially constructed, therefore, diseases are not
necessarily accurate descriptions of what is wrong with a person, but come from social reasoning
(Nettleton, 2006)
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This further shows how
social constructions can be formed out of power relations and have negative effects for the weaker
party (Burr, 2003)
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This can go towards proving that “the
objects of medical science are not what they appear to be; the stable realities of the human body
and disease are in fact ‘fabrications’ or ‘inventions’ rather than discoveries” (Bury 1986:137)
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This knowledge comes from medical practitioners when patients,
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experiencing physical symptoms, go to the doctors
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In this way the social construction of sickness is formed
when visiting the doctor (Hart, 1985)
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It
could be argued however, that some medical achievements work out of pure luck and some have a
placebo effect as if we are told that something will make us better and thus we believe it
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These social constructions
show that social constructions are everywhere and how powerful social constructionism is
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Society is made up of social constructions and so medicine, sexuality and
childhood are just three of the limitless amounts of different constructions that we experience
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This
results in a degree of oppression, although as the constructions are normative this process continues
to happen and when new social constructions are formed they are still oppressive, as the same
power relations are still present
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Bibliography:
Alanen, L
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(2001) Conceptualising child-adult relations
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Aries, P
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Paris: Librairie Plon
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(2002) Sexuality and society, an introduction
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Burr, V
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(second ed
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Fahs, B
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Feminism and Psychology
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22, No
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Foucault, M
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New York: Vintage
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(1988) the sociology of health and medicine
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James, A
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(2004) constructing childhood
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May, V
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Basingstoke: Palgrave
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(2006) The sociology of health and illness
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) Malden: Polity Press
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(2013) Innocence, knowledge and the construction of childhood
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Scambler, G
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London: W
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