Social Constructivism as Paradigm? The Legacy of The Social Construction of Reality

Social constructivism is one of the most prominent theoretical approaches in the social sciences. This volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of its first formulation in Peter Berger and Luckmann’s classic foundational text, The Social Construction of Reality. Addressing the work’s contribution to establishing social constructivism as a paradigm and discussing its potential for current questions in social theory, the contributing authors indicate the various cultural understandings and theoretical formulations that exist of social construction, its different fields of research and the promising new directions for future research that it presents in its most recent developments. A study of the importance of a work that established a paradigm in the international sociology of knowledge, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in social theory, the history of the social sciences and the significance of social constructivism.

Introduction: The Reality of Social Constructivism. Introductory RemarksPart I: The Theory of "The Social Construction of Reality" and its Reception1. Why are Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann Austrians?2. The Theoretical Claims of The Social Construction of Reality3. The Cultural Dimension of Social Constructions. On the Meaning of "Doings" and the Meaning of "Dones"4. The Reality of Material Objectivations: On Dwelling as a Mode of Internalization5. Social Constructions through Socialization. The Perspective of a Constructivist Socialization Research6. Objectification and Verbalization. Social Constructivism and the Problem of Language7. Some Reflections on Reception and Influence of Berger and Luckmann`s Book on Social Construction of Reality in the Spanish-Speaking WorldPart II: The Variety of Constructivisms8. Variations of Constructivism9. The Social Construction of Technology: Where it Came From and Where it Might be Heading10. The Concept of Alternation and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge11. From Pragmatism to Interactive Constructivism 12. Autogenesis and Autopoiesis. On the Emergence of Social Reality in Social and Radical Constructivism13. Knowledge as a Form of the Life-Course – The General Constructivism of Social Systems Theory14. Oblivion of Power? The Social Construction of Reality and the (Counter-) Critique of Pierre Bourdieu15. Habitualization and Habitus – On the Relation between Social Constructivism and the Theory of Practice 16. The Social Construction of Reality: Traces and TransformationPart III: Recent Developments of Social Constructivism17. From the Social to the Communicative Construction of Reality18. From Understanding to Impact: Communicative Power19. The Discursive Construction of RealitiesConclusion: The Social Construction of Reality as a Paradigm?

Michaela Pfadenhauer is Professor of Sociology at the University of Vienna, Austria. She is the author of Invitation to the New Sociology of Knowledge and the co-editor of Epistemic and Learning Cultures.Hubert Knoblauch is Professor of Sociology at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. He is the author of Powerpoint, Communication, and the Knowledge Society, the co-author of Videography: Introduction to Interpretive Videoanalysis of Social Situations, and the co-editor of Culture, Communication, and Creativity: Reframing the Relations of Media, Knowledge, and Innovation in Society.