Background: Social construction

Background: Social construction

A term that I often use in these blogs (and teaching more generally) is ‘social construction’.

When something is socially constructed, it is a phenomenon that is constructed by members of a particular culture or society. These constructions emerge and remain because people agree – either consciously or subconsciously – to follow certain conventions and to behave in certain ways. As I note in my book, one of the challenges in our investigation of contemporary society is to detect and unmask the social constructions that we, by our very actions, support.

Key to understanding social construction is the idea that members of a society which interact together form, over time, representations of what to expect from each other. That is, we establish expectations of how certain people behave: be it boys, girls, Greeks, Italians or Lebanese.

Eventually these become embedded in the behaviours we expect and are also reflected in the way institutions such as schools are organised. In the process, we see the construction shape what we consider to be ‘reality’.

The structure of society then revolves around this constructed reality (or realities) that we accept as being both natural and normal (or innate). One example of a social construct is gender roles: that males and females act different ways. Here the concept of masculinity is based around how ‘real men’ are expected to behave: play sports, be tough, and not be overly emotional. From when we are born, boys are dressed a more masculine blue compared to the pink we give to girls.

When I was growing up, I was repeatedly told that I should ‘act like a man’: something that I imagined was kind of like Arnie in the Terminator. Though these roles are slowly changing, we are still aware of the roles men are supposed to play by what is portrayed in the media, the sports boys play (more males play rugby than netball) and the insults dished out to those who do not meet these criteria (such as ‘you throw like a girl’ or ‘put a skirt on’).

The reality is, however, that these are constructions: there is no reason that boys should wear blue, and as a female friend said to me once, ‘If you are so tough, trying coping with the pain of giving birth’.

One article that a student sent me that explores these ideas is from Sesame Street. You can read it in at:

www.sesameworkshop.org


As always, feedback welcomed…

Cheers, james