Social Constructionism Or Phenomenology And Interactionism

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The idea of reality construction is rooted in social constructionism or phenomenology and interactionism. Therefore, cultural and social worlds make people and at the same time people make them. As a result, in social constructionism, meanings are not developed separately within each individual but rather are developed in social coordination with others. On the other hand, language is among the essential tools in the social construction of reality. Therefore, it has a huge bearing how ideas are perceived as being real. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the idea that reality is socially or linguistically constructed.
Social constructionism essentially argues that an individual isn’t necessarily born with certain traits, but rather the society and elements within the society, are what make the person to be what he or she becomes. In other terms, there is no socioeconomic, biological or psychological factor that determines the position of an individual within the fabric of society. According to phenomenological sociology brought forward by Schultz, human awareness and behavior is a direct result of what happens in the social aspect and what is learnt from it. He also went ahead and noted that reality and facts are quite distinct and cannot be influenced, as these facts are already deciphered. This theory therefore, comes about from what people think on a routine scenario, using common sense.
Human beings as a result, tend to exist in different social constructions, which in turn impact their decision making processes in life. Some of these so called realities, are just but a creation of the social world, and hence, not identical to biological facts. They are just realities based on the realm of knowledge possessed by an individual. Wittgenstein on the other hand, asserted that there is no social activity that occurs in isolation. Language therefore, becomes the central “chord” that connects these social beings together (Turner & Risjord, 2007). He therefore concludes that words can only be meaningful based on ...