Social constructivism

Social constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge according to which human development is socially situated and knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. Social constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge according to which human development is socially situated and knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. Like social constructionism, social constructivism states that people work together to construct artifacts. While social constructionism focuses on the artifacts that are created through the social interactions of a group, social constructivism focuses on an individual's learning that takes place because of his or her interactions in a group. A very simple example is an object like a cup. The object can be used for many things, but its shape does suggest some 'knowledge' about carrying liquids (see also Affordance). A more complex example is an online course—not only do the 'shapes' of the software tools indicate certain things about the way online courses should work, but the activities and texts produced within the group as a whole will help shape how each person behaves within that group. A person's cognitive development will also be influenced by the culture that he or she is involved in, such as the language, history and social context. For a philosophical account of one possible social-constructionist ontology, see the 'Criticism' section of Representative realism. Strong social constructivism as a philosophical approach tends to suggest that 'the natural world has a small or non-existent role in the construction of scientific knowledge'. According to Maarten Boudry and Filip Buekens, Freudian psychoanalysis is a good example of this approach in action. However, Boudry and Buekens do not claim that 'bona fide' science is completely immune from all socialisation and paradigm shifts, merely that the strong social constructivist claim that all scientific knowledge is constructed ignores the reality of scientific success. One characteristic of social constructivism is that it rejects the role of superhuman necessity in either the invention/discovery of knowledge or its justification. In the field of invention it looks to contingency as playing an important part in the origin of knowledge, with historical interests and resourcing swaying the direction of mathematical and scientific knowledge growth. In the area of justification while acknowledging the role of logic and reason in testing, it also accepts that the criteria for acceptance vary and change over time. Thus mathematical proofs follow different standards in the present and throughout different periods in the past, as Paul Ernest argues. One branch of social constructivist philosophy is best represented in the works of the psychologist Robert Rocco Cottone. Cottone has taken a radical philosophical position purporting a purest relational realism (an ontology where everything is viewed as relationship). Things, accordingly, only exist in relation to observers who are able to understand their perceptions through social interchange. Cottone merged the works of the cognitive biologist Humberto Maturana with the works of the social psychologist Kenneth Gergen to produce a fully relational conception of the process of understanding experience. His most compelling concept is that of 'Bracketed Absolute Truth' (also called a 'consensuality'), where a truth is held within a community as absolute, but outside the community it is held by observers as relative to other truths. All understanding of experience is thereby socially constructed, but different communities can construct different interpretations of their shared experience. Truths are never constructed outside of interaction—truth is social. There are as many truths on any one topic as there are communities to construct them. Some truths on one topic may be consistent and others may be contradictory, depending on the perceptual and social linguistic contexts of the groups making the interpretations. Cottone used the example of religion to make his point. Different communities may have different conceptions of a god, for example, even though historically they are speaking of the same godly origin (e.g. Christianity, Judaism). Religion provides a compelling example of how people socially construct their understanding of experience by means of social-linguistic traditions. Each religion, therefore, represents a bracketed absolute truth. Cottone proposed that people operate in a matrix of multilayered consensualities and people progress through life by connecting with, disconnecting from, and continually negotiating through relationships that reflect communities of understanding (e.g., religions, professions, local communities, governments, etc.). He called this process 'social trajectory'. This branch of social constructivist thought does not purport that individuals socially construct a reality, rather it purports that people construct understanding of experience together, not alone. In effect, there are communities of understanding. Social constructivism has been studied by many educational psychologists, who are concerned with its implications for teaching and learning. Social constructivism extends constructivism by incorporating the role of other actors and culture in development. In this sense it can also be contrasted with social learning theory by stressing interaction over observation. For more on the psychological dimensions of social constructivism, see the work of A. Sullivan Palincsar. Psychological tools are one of the key concepts in Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective.