Volume 9, No. 1 – January 2008

Editorial: Theories that matter. On Some Pragmatic Aspects of Social Constructionism

Moderation: Jo Reichertz & Barbara Zielke

In this issue of FQS we launch a new debate: on social constructionism. In our view, social constructionism is, among other things, a good metatheory for grounding qualitative psychological research. In this sense, a debate on the constructionist perspective—often applied to psychological inquiry—is invaluable for qualitative social research in general. [1]

Social constructionism invites celebrating a new kind of psychology that understands the challenges of the linguistic and the cultural turn turns and tries to inject them into the discipline. In their critical reflection of the discipline’s academic mainstream, constructionist psychologists demonstrate that "objective knowledge" is historically and culturally contingent. They articulate what it means to give up culture-centric "universalisms" in an era of globalization and to how to understand psychological phenomena and functions as cultural constructions, not only in the field of academic research and theorizing, but also in various areas of applied psychology. Whereas social constructionism is well known and subject to scholarly debate debates in the English-speaking context, in German (and Swiss, Austrian) psychology the crucial contents and characteristics of a social constructionist psychology are hardly known. [2]

Today various orientations in academic and applied psychology describe themselves as "social constuctionist." Whereas many varieties of constructionism draw on postmodernist and post-structuralist theories, several constructionist writers focus mainly on a rather pragmatic view of language and construction (e.g. Kenneth GERGEN) or on a general theory of dialogical understanding (e.g. John SHOTTER). Discursive psychology often is defined via the specific method of psychological discourse analysis and there are constructionist oriented branches of cultural psychology, as, for example, the programmatic theory of the dialogical self (Hubert HERMANS & Harry KEMPEN). Writings in the field of critical (social) psychology have substantially coined constructionist theory and given it fresh impetus and new aspects (see, e.g., texts by Ian PARKER, Valerie WALKERDINE, Carla WILLIG, or John CROMBY). [3]

Whereas we appreciate this productive heterogeneity of social constructionist approaches, we believe that it should still be possible to list a number of "family similarities" (BURR, 2003) that may help gloss the main characteristics of a social constructionist psychology:

From these broad characteristics some controversial points of discussion arise:

Most of the aspects mentioned above point to the potential of social constructionism to inform social action. Starting from this focus, however, all the following topics may be discussed: epistemological questions and critique of knowledge, the critical potential, the reconstruction of the individual "in discursive terms," the constructionist concept of action, that of practice or the relation of constructionism to postmodernist-semiotic theories of meaning. [6]

In many English speaking countries, there is already a tradition of public debates on these and other issues surrounding a social constructionist psychology (for example PARKER 1999, CROMBY & NIGHTINGALE, 1999; BURR, 2003). In German psychology, in contrast, such discussions have hardly been heard or begun—and this must change! The need for and interest in such debate became obvious through the discussion triggered by the interview on social constructionism with Ken GERGEN (MATTES & SCHRAUBE, 2004; see RATNER, 2004, 2005; ZIELKE, 2005, 2006, 2007; VAN OORSCHOT & ALLOLIO-NÄCKE, 2006). [7]

To date, only a few articles on social constructionism have been published in FQS. It therefore appears to be the right time to bundle this debate and to accelerate it at the same time. Therefore we drafted an outline for such a debate and sent it to authors who we believed might be interested in participating. In the present issue of FQS we do not only keep record of our outline, but also of its response: So far Klaus D. DEISSLER, Pascal DEY, Peter MATTES und Johannes VON TILING have joined in. We would like to thank these authors for their motivation to open the debate with their articles. [8]

Certainly, this debate is not complete with the publishing of this first round as we wish for further comments and articles to supplement our discussion. If you are interested to participate in this debate, please contact Jo REICHERTZ or Barbara ZIELKE. [9]

References

Burr, Vivian (2003). Social constructionism. London: Routledge.

Cisneros-Puebla, César A. (2007). The deconstructive and reconstructive faces of social construction. Kenneth Gergen in conversation with César A. Cisneros-Puebla. With an introduction by Robert B. Faux [83 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(1), Art. 20, http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/1-08/08-1-20-e.htm [January 13, 2008].

Cromby, John & Nightingale, David (Eds.) (1999). Social constructionist psychology. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Parker, Ian (1999). Social constructionism, Discourse and realism. London: Sage.

Ratner, Carl (2004). Social constructionism as cultism. Comments on "'Old-stream' psychology will disappear with the dinosaurs!" Kenneth Gergen in conversation with Peter Mattes and Ernst Schraube [10 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6(1), Art. 28, http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/1-05/05-1-28-e.htm [Februar 14, 2005].

Ratner, Carl (2005). Epistemological, social, and political conundrums in social constructionism [33 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum Qualitative Social Research, 7(1), Art. 4, http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/1-06/06-1-4-e.htm [January 13, 2006].

Mattes, Peter & Schraube, Ernst (2004). "'Old-stream' psychology will disappear with the dinosaurs!" Kenneth Gergen in conversation with Peter Mattes and Ernst Schraube [38 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 5(3), Art. 27, http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-04/04-3-27-e.htm [December 30, 2007].

van Oorschot, Jürgen & Allolio-Näcke, Lars (2006). Against the luxury of misunderstanding. Revisiting the debate between Carl Ratner and Barbara Zielke on an interview with Kenneth J. Gergen and his theory of social constructionism [46 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 7(2), Art. 17, http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-06/06-2-17-e.htm [December 8, 2007].

Zielke, Barbara (2005). The case for dialogue. Reply to "Social constructionism as cultism" by Carl Ratner (December 2004) [12 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6(2), Art. 13, http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-05/05-2-13-e.htm [December 8, 2007].

Zielke, Barbara (2006). Not "anything goes." A critical assessment of constructionism and its misinterpretation. A comment on Carl Ratner's "Epistemological, social, and political conundrums in social constructionism" [21 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 7(1), Art. 27, http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/1-06/06-1-27-e.htm [December 8, 2007].

Zielke, Barbara (2007). Sozialer Konstruktionismus. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Citation

Reichertz, Jo & Zielke, Barbara (2008). Editorial: Theories that matter. On Some Pragmatic Aspects of Social Constructionism. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(1), http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0801D5Ed8.

Revised 2/2008

Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research (FQS)

ISSN 1438-5627

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