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Social Constructionism: Sources And Stirrings In Theory And Practice (pdf)

Social Constructionism: Sources and Stirrings in Theory and Practice offers an introduction to the different theorists and schools of thought that have contributed to the development of contemporary social constructionist ideas, charting a course through the ideas that underpin the discipline. From the New Science of Vico in the 18th century, through to Marxist writers, ethnomethodologists and Wittgenstein, ideas as to how socio-cultural processes provide the resources that make us human are traced to the present day. Despite constructionists often being criticised as 'relativists', 'activists' and 'anti-establishment' and for making no concrete contributions, their ideas are now being adopted by practically-oriented disciplines such as management consultancy, advertising, therapy, education and nursing. Andy Lock and Tom Strong aim to provoke a wider grasp of an alternative history and tradition that has developed alongside the one emphasised in traditional histories of the social sciences.

The Social Construction of What?

Lost in the raging debate over the validity of social construction is the question of what, precisely, is being constructed. Facts, gender, quarks, reality? Is it a person? An object? An idea? A theory? Each entails a different notion of social construction, Ian Hacking reminds us. His book explores an array of examples to reveal the deep issues underlying contentious accounts of reality. Especially troublesome in this dispute is the status of the natural sciences, and this is where Hacking finds some of his most telling cases, from the conflict between biological and social approaches to mental illness to vying accounts of current research in sedimentary geology. He looks at the issue of child abuse—very much a reality, though the idea of child abuse is a social product. He also cautiously examines the ways in which advanced research on new weapons influences not the content but the form of science. In conclusion, Hacking comments on the “culture wars” in anthropology, in particular a spat between leading ethnographers over Hawaii and Captain Cook. Written with generosity and gentle wit by one of our most distinguished philosophers of science, this wise book brings a much needed measure of clarity to current arguments about the nature of knowledge.

The Social Construction of What?

Lost in the raging debate over the validity of social construction is the question of what, precisely, is being constructed. Facts, gender, quarks, reality? Is it a person? An object? An idea? A theory? Each entails a different notion of social construction, Ian Hacking reminds us. His book explores an array of examples to reveal the deep issues underlying contentious accounts of reality.Especially troublesome in this dispute is the status of the natural sciences, and this is where Hacking finds some of his most telling cases, from the conflict between biological and social approaches to mental illness to vying accounts of current research in sedimentary geology. He looks at the issue of child abuse—very much a reality, though the idea of child abuse is a social product. He also cautiously examines the ways in which advanced research on new weapons influences not the content but the form of science. In conclusion, Hacking comments on the “culture wars” in anthropology, in particular a spat between leading ethnographers over Hawaii and Captain Cook. Written with generosity and gentle wit by one of our most distinguished philosophers of science, this wise book brings a much needed measure of clarity to current arguments about the nature of knowledge.

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences Ser.)

A general and systematic account of the role of knowledge in society aimed to stimulate both critical discussion and empirical investigations.This book is concerned with the sociology of ‘everything that passes for knowledge in society’. It focuses particularly on that ‘common-sense knowledge’ which constitutes the reality of everyday life for the ordinary member of society.The authors are concerned to present an analysis of knowledge in everyday life in the context of a theory of society as a dialectical process between objective and subjective reality. Their development of a theory of institutions, legitimations and socializations has implications beyond the discipline of sociology, and their ‘humanistic’ approach has considerable relevance for other social scientists, historians, philosophers and anthropologists.

The Social Construction of Mind: Studies in Ethnomethodology and Linguistic Philosophy

This book provides an original and provocative combination of ethnomethodological analysis and the concepts of linguistic philosophy with a breadth and clarity unusual in this field of writing. It is designed to be read by sociologists, psychologists and philosophers and concerns itself with the contributions of Wittgenstein, defending the claim for his relevance to the human sciences. However, this book goes some way beyond the usual limitations of such interdisciplinary works by outlining some empirical applications of ideas derived from the Wittgenstein tradition.

The Social Construction of Global Corruption: From Utopia to Neoliberalism (Political Corruption and Governance)

This book offers new ways of thinking about corruption by examining the two distinct ways in which policy approaches and discourse on corruption developed in the UN and the OECD. One of these approaches extrapolated transnational bribery as the main form of corrupt practices and advocated a limited scope offense, while the other approach tackled the broader structure of the global economic system and advocated curbing the increasing power of multinational corporations. Developing nations, in particular Chile, initiated and contributed much to these early debates, but the US-sponsored issue of transnational bribery came to dominate the international agenda. In the process, the ‘corrupt corporation’ was supplanted by the ‘corrupt politician’, the ‘corrupt public official’ and their international counterpart: the ‘corrupt country’. This book sheds light on these processes and the way in which they reconfigured our understanding of the state as an economic actor and the multinational corporation as a political actor.

The Social Construction of Democracy, 1870–1990

Major specialists on Europe, the Americas, and Japan explore why democracies succeeded and failed over the past hundred years. Each essay applies the perspective of the social historian - a focus on mentalities, social movements, and the relationship between states and societies - to explain why political participation has changed as it has. What emerges are new national portraits of the social origins of democracy, as well as new comparative explanations that take global processes and national peculiarities into account.

Social Construction: A Reader (PDF)

Social Construction: A Reader is a collection of classic and contemporary articles, representing the major viewpoints central to social constructionism. It provides the reader with an overview of the key empirical research ideas and papers written by an outstanding collection of international authors in each of the substantive areas of the field, including philosophical, social science, ethnography, cultural studies and feminist thought. These readings are bought together in one accessible volume and are organized thematically with editorial commentaries to provide an intellectual context and aid student learning. The Reader is comprised of seven parts:

Social Class, Social Action, and Education: The Failure of Progressive Democracy

Schutz demonstrates that progressive ideas of democracy emerged out of the practices of a new middle class, reacting, in part, against the more conflictive social struggles of the working-class. The volume traces two distinct branches of democratic progressivism: collaborative and personalist.

Social Class, Poverty, and Education: Policy and Practice (PDF)

Equal access to education is an important American ideal, yet for many years it has been unavailable to a large number of Americans living in impoverished communities. Biddle gives an insightful progress report on today's educational system.

Social Class, Poverty and Education

Equal access to education is an important American ideal, yet for many years it has been unavailable to a large number of Americans living in impoverished communities. Biddle gives an insightful progress report on today's educational system.

Social Citizenship Rights: A Critique of F.A. Hayek and Raymond Plant (St Antony's Series)

This book criticises two rival views of social citizenship rights, as they are presented by two authors who are taken as representatives of broader currents of thought: Friedrich A. Hayek and neo-liberalism, and Raymond Plant and socialism. It is claimed that the alternative view presented here should still be regarded as liberal: it is part of an active view of liberalism, or a self-restrained constructivism, which should be distinguished both from neo-liberal evolutionism and socialist egalitarianism.

Social Choice and Democratic Values (Studies in Choice and Welfare)

This book offers a comprehensive overview and critique of the most important political and philosophical interpretations of the basic results of social choice, assessing their plausibility and seeking to identify the links between the theory of social choice and the more traditional issues of political theory and philosophy. In this regard, the author eschews a strong methodological commitment or technical formalism; the approach is instead based on the presentation of political facts and illustrated via numerous real-life examples. This allows the reader to get acquainted with the philosophical and political dispute surrounding voting and collective decision-making and its links to social choice theory.

Social Changes and Yuwen Education in Post-Mao China: Control, Conformity and Contradiction (Education and Society in China)

Inspired by the author’s observations of the language curriculum as a practising teacher for the past 20 years, this book addresses how the high school Chinese language and literacy (Yuwen) curriculum in China was controlled and directed in the post-Mao era. Examining the social and political domination from 1980 to 2010, the book offers insights into how teachers and schools responded to the top-down curriculum change in their teaching practice. This book discusses some of the most important questions concerning China and its education system: What changes have occurred in the Chinese language and literacy curricula; how and why the changes have occurred; who has been in control of the process and outcome; and what impacts the curriculum changes may bring not only to China but to the international sectors that "export" education and degrees to China and Chinese students. The author provides answers to these questions crucial to both the contemporary Chinese society and the students who come out of that system. This critical inquiry of the Yuwen curriculum and its implementation provides a valuable and timely showcase for understanding the ideology of China's future generation and the social and political transformation in the past three decades. In addition to researchers, this book is expected to have impact on policymakers in China and beyond, where Chinese migrants and international students constitute a substantial learning population.

Social Changes and Yuwen Education in Post-Mao China: Control, Conformity and Contradiction (Education and Society in China)

Inspired by the author’s observations of the language curriculum as a practising teacher for the past 20 years, this book addresses how the high school Chinese language and literacy (Yuwen) curriculum in China was controlled and directed in the post-Mao era. Examining the social and political domination from 1980 to 2010, the book offers insights into how teachers and schools responded to the top-down curriculum change in their teaching practice. This book discusses some of the most important questions concerning China and its education system: What changes have occurred in the Chinese language and literacy curricula; how and why the changes have occurred; who has been in control of the process and outcome; and what impacts the curriculum changes may bring not only to China but to the international sectors that "export" education and degrees to China and Chinese students. The author provides answers to these questions crucial to both the contemporary Chinese society and the students who come out of that system. This critical inquiry of the Yuwen curriculum and its implementation provides a valuable and timely showcase for understanding the ideology of China's future generation and the social and political transformation in the past three decades. In addition to researchers, this book is expected to have impact on policymakers in China and beyond, where Chinese migrants and international students constitute a substantial learning population.

Social Change and National Consciousness in Twentieth Century Ukraine (St Antony's Series)

Social Change and Intersectional Activism: The Spirit of Social Movement (The Politics of Intersectionality)

Reading texts in relation to feminist, queer, and race theory and Buddhist philosophy, this book argues that an understanding of spirit is critical to explaining the power that social movements have to change hearts, minds, and social structures.

Social Change and Educational Problems in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong

The spectacular economic and technological achievements of certain Far Eastern countries have attracted world wide attention. The markets of the West are dominated by the products of countries with no traditions of industrialisation and few natural resources. The reaction to this phenomenon has been a mixture of amazement, admiration, envy and, curiosity to know how it was done. This book addresses these questions through a study of the modernisation of three of the most successful Asian societies - Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Social Change and Education in Greece: A Study in Class Struggle Dynamics (Marxism and Education)

Aims to inform students, scholars, and educators about the complex processes and factors that promote or impede education's potential to enhance individual advancement within the socioeconomic structure of a late-industrialized country within the context of modern capitalism.

Social Capital, Lifelong Learning and the Management of Place: An International Perspective

With contributions from around the world, this book brings together inter-related research from three fields: social capital, place management and lifelong learning regions. Providing valuable insight into the management of place and the development of learning at a regional level, the book presents international research that underpins the development and implementation of policies and practices that improve the quality of living and working circumstances at both local and regional levels. International in scope and at the cutting edge of research into this growing field that links lifelong learning to place, the book will appeal both to academics undertaking research in this burgeoning field and to those involved in lifelong learning at local, national and international level.

Social Capital, Lifelong Learning and the Management of Place: An International Perspective

With contributions from around the world, this book brings together inter-related research from three fields: social capital, place management and lifelong learning regions. Providing valuable insight into the management of place and the development of learning at a regional level, the book presents international research that underpins the development and implementation of policies and practices that improve the quality of living and working circumstances at both local and regional levels. International in scope and at the cutting edge of research into this growing field that links lifelong learning to place, the book will appeal both to academics undertaking research in this burgeoning field and to those involved in lifelong learning at local, national and international level.

Social Bonds as Freedom: Revisiting the Dichotomy of the Universal and the Particular

Central to discussions of multiculturalism and minority rights in modern liberal societies is the idea that the particular demands of minority groups contradict the requirements of equality, anonymity, and universality for citizenship and belonging. The contributors to this volume question the significance of this dichotomy between the universal and the particular, arguing that it reflects how the modern state has instituted the basic rights and obligations of its members and that these institutions are undergoing fundamental transformations under the pressure of globalization. They show that the social bonds uniting groups constitute the means of our freedom, rather than obstacles to achieving the universal.

Social Bodies: Science, Reproduction, and Italian Modernity

Using as his example post-World War I Italy and the government's interest in the size, growth rate, and "vitality" of its national population, David Horn suggests a genealogy for our present understanding of procreation as a site for technological intervention and political contestation. Social Bodies looks at how population and reproductive bodies came to be the objects of new sciences, technologies, and government policies during this period. It examines the linked scientific constructions of Italian society as a body threatened by the "disease" of infertility, and of women and men as social bodies--located neither in nature nor in the private sphere, but in that modern domain of knowledge and intervention carved out by statistics, sociology, social hygiene, and social work.Situated at the intersection of anthropology, cultural studies, and feminist studies of science, the book explores the interrelated factors that produced the practices of reason we call social science and social planning. David Horn draws on many sources to analyze the discourses and practices of "social experts," the resistance these encountered, and the often unintended effects of the new objectification of bodies and populations. He shows how science, while affirming that maternity was part of woman's "nature," also worked to remove reproduction from the domain of the natural, making it an object of technological intervention. This reconstitution of bodies through the sciences and technologies of the social, Horn argues, continues to have material consequences for women and men throughout the West.

Social Bodies: Science, Reproduction, and Italian Modernity (Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History)

Using as his example post-World War I Italy and the government's interest in the size, growth rate, and "vitality" of its national population, David Horn suggests a genealogy for our present understanding of procreation as a site for technological intervention and political contestation. Social Bodies looks at how population and reproductive bodies came to be the objects of new sciences, technologies, and government policies during this period. It examines the linked scientific constructions of Italian society as a body threatened by the "disease" of infertility, and of women and men as social bodies--located neither in nature nor in the private sphere, but in that modern domain of knowledge and intervention carved out by statistics, sociology, social hygiene, and social work.Situated at the intersection of anthropology, cultural studies, and feminist studies of science, the book explores the interrelated factors that produced the practices of reason we call social science and social planning. David Horn draws on many sources to analyze the discourses and practices of "social experts," the resistance these encountered, and the often unintended effects of the new objectification of bodies and populations. He shows how science, while affirming that maternity was part of woman's "nature," also worked to remove reproduction from the domain of the natural, making it an object of technological intervention. This reconstitution of bodies through the sciences and technologies of the social, Horn argues, continues to have material consequences for women and men throughout the West.

Social Bodies: Science, Reproduction, and Italian Modernity (Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History)

Using as his example post-World War I Italy and the government's interest in the size, growth rate, and "vitality" of its national population, David Horn suggests a genealogy for our present understanding of procreation as a site for technological intervention and political contestation. Social Bodies looks at how population and reproductive bodies came to be the objects of new sciences, technologies, and government policies during this period. It examines the linked scientific constructions of Italian society as a body threatened by the "disease" of infertility, and of women and men as social bodies--located neither in nature nor in the private sphere, but in that modern domain of knowledge and intervention carved out by statistics, sociology, social hygiene, and social work.Situated at the intersection of anthropology, cultural studies, and feminist studies of science, the book explores the interrelated factors that produced the practices of reason we call social science and social planning. David Horn draws on many sources to analyze the discourses and practices of "social experts," the resistance these encountered, and the often unintended effects of the new objectification of bodies and populations. He shows how science, while affirming that maternity was part of woman's "nature," also worked to remove reproduction from the domain of the natural, making it an object of technological intervention. This reconstitution of bodies through the sciences and technologies of the social, Horn argues, continues to have material consequences for women and men throughout the West.