Essential Concepts in Sociology. Anthony Giddens

production. SSK sees science as itself a form of social activity which must therefore be amenable to sociological investigation. Scientific theories are products of their society, and SSK has often questioned their apparently ‘universal’ validity.

      The coming together of these two strands has led to a general and widespread social constructionism in sociology. This general perspective has been used to analyse a variety of phenomena, from the social construction of Europe to serial homicide, dementia, sexuality and even the ocean. The common theme in all of these studies is an attempt to raise questions about the ‘natural’ or ‘objective’ status of their objects of inquiry. Social constructionist arguments have also been useful for social movements, such as feminism and disabled people’s movements, which challenge the seemingly ‘natural’ status quo that disadvantages women and disabled people respectively.

       Meaning and Interpretation

Social constructionism is very widely adopted in sociology and involves piecing together all the elements which have brought about a specific social phenomenon, such as gender or crime. Constructionism challenges conventional wisdom and common-sense ideas in so far as these accept the existence of, say, gender and crime as natural or normal. For social constructionists, gender and crime are created through historical social processes and social interactions. Of course, this means that gender and crime are not fixed and can be shown to have changed, in both meaning and form, over time and across societies. In this way, social constructionism is rooted in the idea that society and its institutions are always in process, and the task of sociology is to investigate this constant process.

      Not all constructionist approaches are the same, and a basic distinction has been made between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ forms, a distinction lifted from SSK. However, recently this distinction has been reframed as a contrast between ‘strict’ and ‘contextual’ constructionism, which appears to be more neutral. Strict constructionists argue that neither nature nor society presents itself in unmediated form. All phenomena are accessible only through human concepts and theories, and these are open to change – sometimes quite radical change. Strict constructionists are a small minority of constructionists. The vast majority of constructionist studies are happy to acknowledge that there is a reality that is external to sociologists’ discourse, but what is at issue is how we gain access to it. Contextual constructionists have much to say about social and environmental problems and the claims that social groups make about them, pointing out that what cannot be accepted at face value is the existing hierarchy of social problems. Some problems seem very urgent and in need of attention, but others appear relatively trivial and can be safely ignored. Contextual constructionists take the present ordering of social problems as the starting point. Does this ordering actually reflect the seriousness of society’s problems? Sociology can perform a useful role in investigating the arguments made by ‘claims-makers’ and ‘claimsdeniers’, and sociologists can thereby ensure that all the information needed for a rational evaluation can be put into the public domain.

      A good example of how constructionists work is Hannigan’s (2014) study of the environmental problem of biodiversity loss, which rose rapidly to prominence in the 1980s. Biodiversity loss had been known about since at least 1911, evidenced by numerous legislative attempts to protect threatened birds and animals. But no international institutions existed to give such concerns a political focus. What changed in the 1980s was the involvement of multinational business looking to patent genetic resources – such as species within rainforests – the creation of a new ‘crisis’ discipline of conservation biology, the establishment of a United Nations infrastructure that gave the necessary political focus, and a raft of legislation to preserve species. In short, a much more effective range of ‘claims-makers’ had an interest in making this demand, and their combination brought the subject to the top of the environmental problems agenda. Of course, there were also some claims-deniers, but on this occasion the claims-makers proved too strong and well organized. Only a constructionist account which pays attention to the historical construction of this claim is able to show clearly how and why it was successful.

       Critical Points

Interesting though many constructionist accounts may be, critics object to their ‘agnosticism’. Hannigan’s study of biodiversity, for instance, is missing something important. Is biodiversity loss an increasingly serious social and environmental problem? This question is not addressed and cannot be addressed by social constructionism. To do this we need the expert knowledge of biologists, natural historians and environmental scientists. Very few sociologists have the expert knowledge required to engage in detailed debates about biodiversity or many other problems. For some, such as critical realists, without including this expertise in the analysis, sociology gets reduced to a series of discourse studies looking at statements, documents and texts without ever getting to the bottom of the real issue at hand.

      One further criticism is that social constructionism seems to prioritize the politics of claims-making and sometimes appears more useful to political and social movements than to scientific sociology. Demonstrating how relatively powerful social groups are able to shape and dominate political debates is a useful function, but constructionism very often seems to take the side of the underdog. In that sense it has been argued that the perspective is politically biased. For example, women’s movements used constructionist arguments to show that there was no ‘natural place’ for women in the private, domestic sphere, and that child-bearing and child-rearing did not present ‘natural’ barriers to gender equality. The criticism here is not that such arguments are illegitimate, but that constructionism is closer to political strategy than scientific research methods.

      Given that all social phenomena are potentially amenable to a social constructionist analysis, it perhaps inevitable that social constructionism was itself seen as socially constructed – hence, Motyl’s (2010) caustic discussion and dismissal of strong versions of constructionism. This paper is concerned with nationalism and identity-formation but should be read for its separation of mainstream social constructionism, which the author sees as quite ‘run-of-the-mill’, and strong constructionism, which is ‘unusual, exciting and wrong’.

       Continuing Relevance

      Social constructionism has been enormously successful in sociology and probably plays a part in the majority of research studies today. There is no doubt that it has produced many insights into social life. Social constructionism points to the inexorably social nature of all known phenomena, which puts human societies at the heart of the analysis, giving sociologists a central place. It can be extremely valuable as it lays bare processes of social construction and thus facilitates a better informed and wider public debate about major issues rather than leaving these to ‘experts’.

One particularly contentious issue, both historically and in contemporary societies, is that of migration and attitudes towards migrants and refugees. In our globalizing age, migration has become significant in political, economic and cultural debates in many countries. Flores and Schachter (2018) explored the specific issue of illegal immigration into the USA, asking the question ‘who are the illegals?’ It may appear that this question is irrelevant, as legality and illegality are matters of law, and definitions of who counts as ‘illegal’ are therefore fixed. However, this piece of survey research looked into perceptions of illegality among 1,515 non-Hispanic, white American adults. The authors found that social class, national origin and criminal background were key factors in the creation of shared stereotypes and a form of ‘social illegality’ that influences the decisions of employers, teachers, landlords and members of the public. In short, ‘illegality’ in society is not merely that defined in law but is powerfully socially constructed, with serious consequences for ethnic-based inequality.

       References and Further Reading

      Flores, R. D., and Schlachter, A. (2018) ‘Who Are the “Illegals”? The