Social Constructionism in Housing Research

By stressing the importance of subjectivity and interpretation, social constructionism offers a different conception of reality from the traditional approach to housing policy analysis. This book provides an up-to-date review of the social constructionist perspective and considers its philosophical basis. It discusses how social problems are constructed and, in turn, how this informs policy-making. It is divided into two parts. The first section is theoretical and discusses the variety of conceptual approaches utilised within the constructionist paradigm. The second part provides a number of empirically based case studies from the UK and Australia to illustrate the different methodologies that form the social constructionist corpus. The book also evaluates both the criticisms that have been made against the social constructionist perspective and the strengths and weaknesses of constructionist methods. It therefore contributes to the development of a future research agenda for social constructionist research in housing and urban policy.

Contents: Introduction, Keith Jacobs, Jim Kemeny and Tony Manzi; The philosophical assumptions of constructionism, Max Travers; Relativism, subjectivity and the self: a critique of social constructionism, Peter King; Extending constructionist social problems to the study of housing problems, Jim Kemeny; Constructing the meaning of social exclusion as a policy metaphor, Greg Marston; Housing pathways - a social constructionist research framework, David Clapham; Necessary welfare measure or policy failure: media reports of public housing in Sydney in the 1990s, Kathleen J. Mee; Organizational research: conflict and power within UK and Australian social housing organizations, Michael Darcy and Tony Manzi; Social constructionism and international comparative housing research, Anna Haworth, Tony Manzi and Jim Kemeny; Index.

Dr Keith Jacobs is Senior Lecturer in the School of Sociology, Social Work and Tourism at the University of Tasmania, Australia. Professor Jim Kemeny is Professor of Housing and Urban Sociology at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research in the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Tony Manzi is Senior Lecturer in the School of the Built Environment and Architecture at the University of Westminster, UK.