2. An Introduction to Social Constructions

Few intellectual movements in social work have generated as much controversy as social construction.¹ Some see it as a perilous trend inimical to the development of a more scientifically based social work (e.g., Reid, 2001), while others consider it a promising alternative to ways of thinking that have contributed to suffering and oppression (e.g., Parton and O’Byrne, 2000). Between these positions are many other views that take up social construction in various ways (e.g., Payne, 1999). This chapter attempts to provide an overview of some ideas commonly associated with social construction and their relevance for social work. I will show that social construction has broad applicability to the beliefs, values, and practices that characterize social work. In some areas, there is a remarkable congruence between social work and social construction; in others, social construction invites us to rethink how we understand and practice social work. Since it will not be possible to cover these ideas in depth, I provide resources for further reading at the end of the chapter.

As I write this chapter, I hold certain assumptions about you, the reader, and why you are reading this book. First, I assume that you are most likely a social work student, educator, or practitioner.² Second, I assume that you are curious about social construction and wish to learn more, or that you already have an interest in social construction and want to learn about its applicability to social work or related fields, or (and not mutually exclusive with the other assumptions) that you have been assigned this book for a course you are taking. Although there are undoubtedly other readers and reasons, the above constitutes my imagined, primary audience, the group to whom I am writing. Thus, I will not presume prior knowledge of social construction, only curiosity, interest, or, in the case of a course requirement, a sense of obligation. Regardless of your reasons for reading, I hope my writing is accessible and interesting. I also invite you to actively engage with the material, treating it more like a conversation than a factual tome.

Like any theoretical or conceptual framework, social construction owes much to other intellectual and social developments. Broadly conceived, these developments could be considered part of the postmodernist movement as it developed in the period following the Second World War. While the complexity of postmodernism is beyond the scope of this chapter, it can be thought of as a cultural and intellectual movement whose orientation and beliefs contrast with those associated with the historical period known as the Enlightenment.³ This period is also referred to as the start of the modern era, hence the term modernism. Of relevance here are modernist values of individualism and beliefs in reason and science as the avenues to universal knowledge and inevitable progress. In the early-eighteenth century, these beliefs provided a striking alternative to the widespread authority of religious dogma. Similar to the rejection of religious authority, postmodernists believe that modernity’s promise to realize “the emancipation of humanity from poverty, ignorance, prejudice, and the absence of enjoyment” (Lyotard, 1988) is no longer viable. Rather, postmodernism eschews reliance on such “meta-narratives” (overarching, transcendental beliefs) in favor of historically, culturally, and socially contingent beliefs that are always changing.

Postmodernism itself is not an easy term to explain as it is subject to a “certain semantic instability” (Hassan, 1993: 276) and a lack of consensus among scholars. In a general sense, we may think of it as “a way of understanding the world” (Lemert, 1997). More specifically, different scholars have highlighted the ways in which this understanding differs from modernist thought. For example, Alvesson (2002) identifies five themes of postmodernism including:

The centrality of discourse, in which language is viewed as a constitutive force and objects of the world are discursively produced;

Fragmented identities, which rejects the view of individuals as bounded, encapsulated beings having a particular essential nature in favor of fluid, multiple selves;

The critique of the idea of representation emphasizing the arbitrary links between words and what they are assumed to represent and the rejection of language as a “mirror of nature”;

The loss of foundations and the power of grand narratives, in which there are no ultimate bases of knowledge claims, rather knowledge is considered local, temporal, and historically and culturally contingent, a position that invites multiple voices; and

The power-knowledge connection, which rejects the notion of neutral or value-free knowledge and considers different accounts to always favor particular understandings and actions over others.

These themes of postmodernism spawned several interrelated critiques focusing on the historical, social, ideological, philosophical, and linguistic dimensions of knowledge (see Gergen, 1994 for a more detailed exposition).⁴ In large part, these critiques were aimed at how what we take to be knowledge is produced (primarily through science and its expression in research) and how it functions. Rather than accepting the dominant views of science and research (for example, that research knowledge gets us closer to “Reality”), these critiques proposed alternative accounts of knowledge generation that tended to unseat mainstream science from its sacrosanct position. Challenging such core beliefs enabled new alternatives, such as social construction, to develop. A few illustrative examples follow.⁵

A landmark work in the area of historical and social critique was Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970), which challenged the conventional view of science as a cumulative, knowledge-building activity. Kuhn’s historical analysis portrayed science as a decidedly social enterprise in which knowledge progression, rather than following an ever-upwards linear trajectory, was characterized by periods of puzzle-solving and clashes between proponents of different “paradigms” (all-encompassing views of a science). According to Kuhn’s historical analysis, victory in these competitions was not a function of the truth value of the paradigm, but of social and cultural factors operating within communities of scientists. As Kuhn concluded, “We may have to relinquish the notion, explicit or implicit, that changes of paradigm carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth” (171).

Kuhn’s text and those of other philosophers who questioned the canonical authority of science (e.g., Feyerabend, 1975) generated space for other types of critiques. Among the most visible were those that questioned the neutrality of science and its claim to depict an objective world. Critics argued that science was ideological: it holds to a particular version of events and maintains its own authority through the control of knowledge in the service of powerful interests. Similar to Kuhn, these authors made visible the extra-scientific factors at play in the development of scientific theories and the construction and interpretation of research. Significant here—and probably most familiar to readers—were feminist critiques that challenged the notion of gender neutrality in science. For scientists like the physicist Evelyn Fox Keller, “Science is the name we give to a set of practices and a body of knowledge delineated by a community, not simply defined by the exigencies of logical proof and experimental verification. Similarly, masculine and feminine are categories defined by a culture, not by biological necessity. Women, men, and science are created, together, out of a complex dynamic of interwoven cognitive, emotional, and social forces” (1995: 4). Inspired by this understanding, studies demonstrated how the failure to question dominant societal assumptions (e.g., about gender) led scientists to reproduce and legitimize these beliefs in their research (see, for example, Martin, 1991).

Language is a central form of expression for all manner of intellectual endeavors. Another avenue of critique was generated by scholars interested in the structure and use of language and how literary conventions and rhetorical expressions shape knowledge production. Work about interpretation and meaning was particularly (and ironically) influential in generating reinterpretations and new meanings for scientific texts. These critiques have been associated with concepts such as deconstructionism, a term formulated by the French theorist Jacques Derrida. Although the meaning of deconstruction is elusive, Derrida (1983) suggested it be thought of as a “strategic device” (40). It is typically used, at least in social work contexts, as a term for “unpacking” the multiple meanings of texts. A related area of literary critique focuses on scientific writing as a literary genre, “. . . how the work of science is necessarily grammatical: naming, constructing, and positioning the social and natural worlds . . .” (Luke, 1993: xiv). For example, the reporting of science as expressed in research studies is always an attempt to persuade particular audiences of the merits of its argument. This is the domain of rhetoric. Various persuasive strategies can influence the acceptance or rejection of a position (e.g., Lyne and Howe, 1986). Such studies show that it is not data alone that play a role in the credibility of scientific judgments.

An important contribution of social construction has been to integrate these critiques using them to decrease the impenetrability of scientific authority. This in turn, has generated new ways of thinking that I believe generate novel possibilities and opportunities for social workers. But critique is not an end in itself and social construction is also concerned with the development of new practices and models of understanding (as the following chapters in this book demonstrate).

Social constructionists tend to be adverse to the limitations of precise definitions. They view the “is” of identity (i.e., social construction is . . .) as more restrictive than helpful. Thus, if you are asking yourself, “but what is social construction?” you may find my response elusive and frustrating. It might help to think of this task as similar to defining social work; specific definitions rarely seem to capture its nuances and complexities. This is not an argument for ambiguity; only that formal definition often functions as a way of generating an authoritative statement of what something is while excluding everything else. As discussed below, and in the title of this chapter, social construction is best considered in the plural. There is no one “official” version, although most share certain features. To provide you with a sense of social construction without closing off the many ways it can be construed, I share some statements from different authors followed by my own commentary.⁶

Social constructionists do not assume a pre-existing world waiting to be discovered. Rather, it is through social interchange that what we take as the realities of the world come into being. This has important implications for social work and leads us to consider our own participation in “world making,” the realities we and others experience.

This statement overlaps the previous one but adds the dimension of language. The ways in which we describe the world are mediated by language; no one linguistic representation is closer to reality than any other. Thus, social constructionists are more interested in the utility of descriptions than in their “Truth.” Social workers, too, might benefit from focusing more on how language functions than on its veracity—for example, emphasizing the implications of psychosocial theories of development for how we understand and treat others than arguing about their ultimate truth.

I will take constructionism to represent a range of dialogues centered on the social genesis of what we take to be knowledge, reason, and virtue on the one side, and the enormous range of social practices born and/or sustained by these discourses on the other. In its critical moment, social constructionism is a means of bracketing or suspending any pronouncement of the real, the reasonable, or the right. In its generative moment, constructionism offers an orientation toward creating new futures, an impetus to societal transformation (Gergen, 1999).

The centrality of language is extended in this statement. Social construction is considered as two kinds of dialogues: those concerning the social origins of what is regarded to be true, rational, and moral, and those about the practices that these dialogues generate and maintain. Gergen further distinguishes between two aspects of social construction that he terms its critical and generative moments, the former encouraging critical analyses, the latter, alternative ways of living.

Another way of understanding social construction is to consider it along two interrelated dimensions: product-process (Pearce, 1992)⁷ and micro-macro. In the product-process dimension, the emphasis is on what and how, respectively. The what constitutes the socially constructed product—for example, mental illness, childhood, emotion, and their connections to historical, cultural, and social factors. In the process case, we examine how things become socially constructed—for example, how we construct factual accounts through dialogic processes.

The second dimension, micro-macro, is familiar to most social workers. Applied to social construction, a micro-orientation focuses on interpersonal contexts, such as dyads or families. Macro-oriented social constructionists emphasize broader historical, cultural, and social factors. An example here would be how our understandings of ideas like mental illness or family are connected to historical and cultural contingencies (this is taken up in the section on discourse).

These orientations are neither independent nor mutually exclusive and illustrate some of the ways social construction is used. Despite these variations, it is possible to glean some general commonalities among most descriptions of social construction.⁸ These include:

Gergen and Gergen provide what is perhaps the most succinct statement of social construction’s central idea: “We construct the world” (2004: 8), although as they caution, the simplicity of this idea is both profound in its implications (“The basic idea asks us to rethink virtually everything we have been taught about the world and ourselves”) and complex in its expressions. Note, too, the word “we” in this statement. It is not “I” that constructs the world, but “we,” that is, people in relation. This foregrounding of the social is another fundamental idea of social construction. In my experience, this is a crucial and radical shift (and not surprisingly, a difficult one to accept) as it runs counter to the strong currents of individualism embedded in Western cultures.

Some of the ideas explored so far can be illustrated by examining a common challenge for those writing about social construction, or from a social constructionist perspective: how to make such writing accessible. As an expression of postmodern thought, the language of social construction can seem arcane and unfamiliar. Although in some cases, such language might be judged as unnecessary or as a misguided display of erudition, it often reflects a struggle not to reproduce the very assumptions and understandings that the writer hopes to dislodge—or, to put it affirmatively, to say something new. This struggle is based on the aforementioned idea that our beliefs about reality are largely constituted by language. In other words, the language that we use to represent the world, including ourselves and others, generates what we take as real. Things like aardvarks, bicycles, and depression “exist” because of the words that name them and render them visible and intelligible. Additionally, as linguists have argued for quite some time, the relationship between a symbol (e.g., a word) and the thing symbolized is arbitrary. Despite Shakespeare, a rose may not be a rose by any other name, or even a flower! That is, “it” is not any particular thing until we name it.

These beliefs represent a profound shift in thinking from the long-held view that language is a relatively transparent vehicle for representing reality, that it reflects what is “out there.” This view, often termed correspondence theory (see Rorty, 1979), sees language as a way of conveying information about reality. But how can “the real” and the language used to represent it be disentangled? Any attempts to do so likely would require language, further complicating this conundrum.

As noted previously, understanding how language functions limits the ability of “old” language to express new ideas, perspectives, and analyses. Common usage patterns that have developed over time give words familiar meanings. These meanings help coordinate our actions and enable us to carry out our everyday activities. However, while such common understanding is essential, it also makes it difficult to create new meanings without introducing new words or using the common words in novel ways. This tension is expressed by R. H. Brown (1990: 60): “One must use a known language, with its inherent vantage point and presuppositions, to say anything intelligible. But it is difficult to convey a new vision in an established discourse. If the new perspective is too closely wedded to a new mode of representation, it will appear incomprehensible to users of the old. But if the new vision is encoded in the old language, this very language, although easily comprehended, may contradict the new message that the author is struggling to express” (emphasis added).

Something similar to this happens whenever neologisms—new words, new combinations of words, or new meanings of words—are incorporated into language. Think of words like blog, locavore, carbon footprint, or road rage. In part, these words were invented to express new ideas that the “old lexicon” could not capture. Although at first such words may seem unclear or strange, they soon become part of everyday discourse.

The arbitrariness of the relationship between word and thing (or signifier and signified to use linguistic terminology) and language as a constitutive force are further illustrated in the following example. Imagine that you observe two people interacting. How do you know what is happening? Typically, you interpret (give meaning to) their actions based on your knowledge of cultural and social norms and the immediate context. You may also draw upon your own relationship history (e.g., you may be reminded of something you’ve experienced) and your linguistic resources—the words available to you. Let’s say, for instance, you observe an adult and a child.⁹ The adult is moving his finger near the child’s face, and the child has her head down. Based on your knowledge and experience, you might assume that you are observing an act of discipline. This interpretation might be different if the setting was a theatrical production or if the child and adult were laughing. Your interpretation might also change depending on your particular standpoint. For example, consider how the situation might be “read” differently if you were a child psychiatrist, a protective services social worker, a believer in the “spare the rod spoil the child” philosophy, a person from a non-Western culture, or a children’s rights advocate. These factors will influence what is noticed (for example, gender, ethnicity, facial expressions, volume and intonation, posture, and presumed relationship) and their significance, which in turn influence interpretations. In other words, we attempt to make sense out of our observations using a variety of cues and signs, and multiple interpretations are always possible.¹⁰

Now let’s go even further and consider what happens when you tell someone else (or even yourself) what you observed. Which words will you choose to describe the event: disciplining, scolding, explaining, teaching, criticizing? And what is the relationship between the words chosen and what actually happened (assuming there is an “actually”)? Also, consider that once those words are spoken, to yourself or others, they in effect “become” the event.

For social constructionists, this example illustrates how language is central to our understandings. And language, being an historical-cultural expression, can vary across temporal, physical, and social contexts. One implication of this is that any description of an action, experience, or event could be otherwise. What we call something is not compelled by some natural or inevitable relationship between object and word, but by historical, cultural, and social factors that have led to certain associations. For example, there is nothing about the object we call a tree that compels us to use that word to signify what it is. We could just as easily call it a bush or puu (the Finnish word for tree), or even kangaroo. Now you might be saying to yourself, “Right, if I call a tree a kangaroo not only will no one know what I am talking about but they’ll question my sanity.” Such a reaction makes an important point. It matters what we call things, not because they have inherently correct names, but because language is the primary way that we coordinate our actions with others. We need general agreement about the symbols we use to signify things. If we persist in assigning idiosyncratic meanings to objects and events, others may begin to wonder how we are perceiving the world and whether they can relate to us in complementary ways.

Given this line of reasoning, it seems reasonable to ask how words get their meaning. A common response might be from dictionaries. Aren’t they repositories of meaning? Yes, dictionaries do provide various accepted definitions for words; however, they do not address the issue that we have raised, that of the relationship between a word and whatever it stands for. Take the word “grab,” for example. If I looked in a dictionary I might find the definition “to take or seize,” that is, other words. But what do these words mean? If I look them up in the dictionary I find that they are defined by still other words. This could go on indefinitely, each definition subject to further definition. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida called this process deferral; that is, meaning is deferred to other words. He also noted that words gain their meaning by being differentiated from other words—what they are not. We know the meaning of “grab” by differentiating it from words like “caress” or “request.” In fact, Derrida (1982) came up with a new word to express this idea—différance—which indicated a combining of the ideas of difference and deferral. (Of course, this word too is subject to difference and deferral.)

Another philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, believed that the meaning of words depended on how they are used: “think of words as instruments characterized by their use” (1965: 67). For Wittgenstein, the meaning of a word was not its dictionary definition, but its use in social practices (what he called a “language game”). For example, if I ask “How old are you?” you likely would answer by stating a number, which in turn would signify a duration of time using a metric called “years” beginning with an event called “birth.” We take this number to represent something called “age.” If I pose the same question to a young child, she might also answer with a number (e.g., “two”) because she learned from her parents what to say in response to such a question. For the child, the response does not have the meaning described above; she is playing a different language game. Most adults would understand, at least tacitly, that they are playing different language games when asking this question of a young child or an adult. We might consider the use of language games in practitioner-client interactions. Are we using the same sets of rules? Do we teach clients how to “play” a particular game?

Wittgenstein used the idea of “language game” to illustrate different ways people learn to use language. Particularly important is how words are used in particular contexts. Wittgenstein called these larger contexts “forms of life.” An oft-quoted phrase of Wittgenstein is that “if a lion could speak, we could not understand him” because we would not understand his form of life, the context—the background assumptions and presuppositions—that give his words meaning.

As you think about this, you might be wondering: Do words ever connect to “real world” objects? This is an important question, but consider that the question already assumes the existence of something called “real world objects.” Such objects may exist, but how would I know this without the words that designate them? For example, the word “flower” is used to designate some object. But what is the object—a flower! And what is a flower? If we could look it up in the dictionary we would find, as noted above, not objects, but other words.

For social constructionists, the question of whether or not there is a “real world” is moot. Whatever is, is; however, our understanding of the world and our ability to communicate about it requires language. So my answer to the original question is that words connect to real world objects whenever there is agreement that they connect and when “real world” is taken to be another designation. This is not to say that people do not experience things as real, or that certain things are real and others are merely social constructions. The point is that what we take as real can vary and change depending on historical contingencies, cultural traditions, and the vicissitudes of social interchange.

Okay, back to earth. What does all this have to do with social work practice? Let’s imagine that we adopt the ideas we’ve explored: that language constitutes rather than reflects what we take as real, that the relationship between word and object is arbitrary, that meaning is related to use, and that understanding depends on knowledge of the larger context—the background assumptions and beliefs that are inextricably tied to interpretation. For starters, these ideas suggest that when we describe something, we are not simply reporting on something outside of ourselves and our language, but proposing a reality, one of many possible realities. Suppose a client tells you that he is depressed. He describes how no one likes him and how everything he does turns out bad. Your first inclination might be to ask, is this true? Is he really depressed? For the constructionist-informed practitioner such a question is not the most relevant. If language constitutes reality, then in one sense we might say that this person is reporting a truth; he is using certain words that, in our culture, provide an intelligible interpretation of his experience—for example, “no one likes me” and “depressed.” In addition, the statement “I am depressed” (along with other actions) is part of that truth; it is how the person “performs” depression and gives it meaning. This “truth” is useful as information about how this person is making sense of his experience. As a practitioner, you might want to explore how this way of understanding functions in this person’s life and what alternative meanings might be possible.¹¹ Note that the alternatives (e.g., the demands of my job have kept me from socializing with others) are no more or less true—in some ultimate sense—than the client’s account; they are simply alternative ways of making sense out of the person’s experience.

Social constructionists do not deny truth, but they are troubled by Truth (capital T intended). According to the philosopher Richard Rorty, “No description or interpretation is closer to reality than any other. Some are more useful for some purposes, but that’s about all you can say” (Rorty, 2000). Still, human social life would be intolerably difficult and probably not possible without treating some beliefs as true. It is when we see our truths as universal and transcendent that they become problematic. For social constructionists, truth is multiple (truths), contextual, and communal; that is, truths rely on social processes for their intelligibility and sustainability. Within different “discourse communities,” different beliefs will function as truths. These beliefs tend to be functional within the communities in which they operate. Conflict often arises when one community tries to impose its truths (e.g., scientific, religious, or cultural) on other communities. The imposition of Truth (even when its aim is to enlighten) is to privilege a particular understanding or way of knowing and to diminish others. Thus, a more useful approach would be to ask whose truth is being asserted and how does it function in this community? Such an orientation aligns social construction with social workers’ professed belief in legitimizing marginalized voices.

Discourse is a word with many meanings. Most commonly, we think of discourse as a verb (as when we engage in discussion) or as a noun (as in a speech on some topic). In both cases, there is a sense of seriousness about the activity; that is, we do not call something discourse that is frivolous or comedic. If you look up the word “discourse” in a dictionary, you will find meanings like “serious conversation” and “serious speech or piece of writing” (Encarta Dictionary, 2009). So broadly speaking, we might say that in everyday usage, discourse refers to forms of communication that have a relatively serious tone.

Within a social constructionist framework, discourse has additional meanings. In fact, depending on your particular “take” on social construction and your interests, the meanings can range broadly. Burr (2003) uses the micro-macro distinction, discussed earlier in relation to social construction, as a way of differentiating two widely used applications of discourse.

In the micro context, discourse is about how people use language to coordinate their actions and to accomplish things, how they co-construct understandings about values, aesthetics, truths, and realities. The emphasis is on interpersonal interaction. One might say that in the micro context the verb sense of discourse is emphasized with the focus on how things get done. Discourse is both constructed and constructive (Potter and Hepburn, 2008).¹² It is constructed in the sense that it is constituted by words, grammars, and elements of language; it is constructive in that it uses these symbolic resources to create ways of understanding.

Practitioners and researchers working from this framework are interested in the ways people interact to express different versions of reality. For example, Guendouzi (2005) showed how mothers of young children use talk to construct different versions of reality about themselves. The women in her study discursively presented themselves as “good mothers” by demonstrating, for instance, that they have attributes like caring and protectiveness. Similarly, a practitioner might be interested in how people go about describing their family, noting the words and rhetorical strategies members use to position themselves and justify particular actions.

Another constructionist-oriented approach to understanding discourse within an interactional context is that of positioning theory (Harré and van Langenhove, 1999). You may be familiar with the sociological concept of role: the expected attitudes and behavior of socially identified positions. People enact particular roles in relation to others who occupy complementary roles, for example, a teacher and a student. Positioning theory extends this concept with one that is more flexible and dynamic. Positions, from this perspective, are the discursive stances that people adopt, or are ascribed, in their interactions. Such positions can be relatively stable, like teacher, or they can be fluid, like that of an honest person. An important view of positioning theory is that positions are associated with rights and duties. For example, a parent has the right to speak to his or her child in certain ways that a non-parent does not. A parent also has certain duties toward that child. According to van Langenhove and Harré (1999), positioning is a consequence of three interdependent background conditions: illocutionary force, or the social significance of an utterance; storyline, or the cultural narratives that provide intelligibility to positions (e.g., the overburdened parent, the good Samaritan); and position, the rights and duties associated with various signs and utterances (Harré, 2004, 6).

Positioning theory provides a framework for interpreting how discursive acts function in ways that influence our understandings and actions. Harré (2004) gives the example of an interaction between a person with Alzheimer’s disease and her caregiver in which the latter states that their charge is incapable of understanding. This type of “malignant positioning,” as they call it, positions the other as outside the sphere of human interaction, thereby disqualifying their attempts at communication. Such positioning may be recognizable to social workers who work with people from marginalized groups—for example, people with schizophrenia. In contrast to malignant positioning, we can consider “strength positioning,” which ascribes to someone the right to be heard and responded to in a way that acknowledges their personhood.

Understandings of discourse at the macro level are substantially informed by the work of the French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault (e.g., Foucault, 1972, 1980). Foucault viewed discourse as a system of representation that shapes beliefs, meanings, and their expression. He was interested in why certain beliefs and ways of understanding become dominant in different historical periods and how these characteristic ways of thinking (what he called episteme) are maintained. Although speech and writing are central aspects of discourse, Foucault expanded the concept to include how language is inscribed within organizations and institutions. His most famous example is the panopticon, a prison built in such a way that prisoners are always visible to their guards. Another example would be the hierarchical way a hospital is organized. One might say that this organization inscribes medical discourse such that different staff, for example, doctors, nurses, and orderlies, occupy particular niches that reflect beliefs about illness and how to best treat it.

Foucault wrote that discourses are “practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak” (Foucault, 1972: 49); that is, discourses do more than represent objects and people, they construct them. Through discourses, we come to recognize something as intelligible. For example, psychological discourse enables us to “see” various psychological conditions or syndromes within people. These conditions are further inscribed and maintained by such things as psychological tests. Thus, a condition such as “borderline personality disorder” is rendered visible and intelligible through psychological discourse.

This conception of discourse has important implications for social workers. Discourses are never neutral. As Fiske (1987) writes, “[the] meanings [of a discourse] serve the interests of that section of society within which the discourse originates and which works ideologically to naturalize those meanings into common sense. . . . Discourse is thus a social act which may promote or oppose the dominant ideology” (11). Therefore, discourses are intimately related to power.

Leslie Miller (2008) addresses this relationship: “A discourse asserts a preferred version of the world, one that disqualifies competing versions; in the hospital I am a patient (not a member of a church, let’s say), and medical discourse stipulates this ‘me’ as the real and true one” (252). Different versions of events invite different practices. They justify certain ways of treating people and discourage other ways. Burr (2003, 68) argues,

What it is possible for one person to do to another, under what rights and obligations, is given by the version of events currently taken as knowledge. Therefore, the power to act in particular ways, to claim resources, to control or be controlled depends upon the knowledge currently prevailing in a society. We can exercise power by drawing upon discourses, which allow our actions to be represented in an acceptable light.

Thus, how we comprehend things such as health and illness, difference, and families (themselves socially constructed entities) will allow certain actions to be sanctioned and others condemned, some to be encouraged and others thwarted, some viewed as sensible and others irrational. Examining such discourses can help social workers and others understand how discourses and our participation in them constitute clients and our relationships to them, as well as identify possible alternatives.

As you read this brief introduction to social constructionist ideas, you may have noticed certain similarities or areas of congruence between social construction and social work. These connections also captured my attention when I first studied social construction. There seemed to be a natural fit between many social constructionist ideas and my understanding of social work. There also were differences that I believed could be beneficial to social work. I discuss some of these areas of congruence and difference later in this chapter.

Within a discursive field, for instance that of law or the family, not all discourses carry equal weight or power. Some will account for and justify the appropriateness of the status quo. Others will give rise to challenge existing practices from within or will contest the very basis of current organization and the selective interest that it represents. Such discourses are likely to be marginal to existing practice and dismissed by the hegemonic system of meanings and practices as irrelevant or bad.

These marginal discourses and the alternative visions they offer tend to be associated with categories of people who are disadvantaged by the “meanings and practices” justified by dominant discourses. Social workers are sensitive to and aware of these alternative discourses and try to bring legitimacy and awareness to them. Similarly, social constructionists question the authority of dominant discourses and propose alternatives. They are interested in alternative understandings and the social processes by which certain discourses “rise to the top” and what maintains them.

The long-standing social work notion of person-in-environment recognizes that people cannot be properly understood apart from the environments they inhabit (e.g., Gitterman and Germain, 2008). Similarly, social construction emphasizes the historical, cultural, and social contexts of beliefs. However, whereas the acontextual orientations of essentialism and individualism are incongruous with social construction, social work’s stance, as evidenced in its writings and practices, is more ambiguous.¹³ Also, for social constructionists the environment is as much a social construction as are people, and the relationship between them is not taken as a more veridical reading of reality, but as a more useful way of understanding.

Values are integral to social work. They form the basis for its development and function as guides to its practices. Although not subscribing to specific values like social work, social construction holds that there are no value-free actions or beliefs. Our theories and practices always favor certain ways of perceiving, understanding, and doing. Explicating these values is important for understanding their implications and potential contributions. Although neither social workers nor social constructionists would argue for the imposition of one’s values on others, social workers conducting mainstream research are more apt to emphasize eliminating or controlling values whereas social constructionists would favor value transparency and exploring how they function.

In a publication more than a decade ago, I wrote that “. . . social workers believe that it is important for those who are silenced—for whatever reason—to have a voice. We also tend to believe that those who are marginalized in society have a perspective that is valuable for the rest of us to hear” (Witkin, 1999, 7). Social constructionists similarly believe that we must be attentive to the various perspectives that may exist on a topic. Often, these voices reflect a different assumptive world, thereby exposing beliefs that have blended invisibly into the pervasive background of our social lives. Both social work and social construction recognize the importance of challenging dominant knowledge systems and providing avenues for silenced voices.

Questioning the taken-for-granted and assumed is an important function of social construction. It is captured in Foucault’s notion of “problematization,” to not take for granted what is taken for granted, but to treat such beliefs and assumptions as ways of understanding that have gained a status that renders them relatively impervious or invisible to traditional analyses. To problematize means to view this status, not as a reflection of the ways things “really are,” but of some social process such as a relation of power (Smith, 1987). Similarly, it is integral to social workers’ view of the world that we do not uncritically accept commonly held explicit or implicit beliefs about our clients or the causes of social problems such as poverty and crime, or the ability of people to change, or the relationship between people and the social environment.

Perhaps, more than any other area, this is where social construction and social work find common ground, albeit in different ways. Although not often explicitly stated, you can plausibly interpret social constructionist literature as generating the possibility of new futures in which people are tolerant and respectful of many views and traditions and in which the highest value is placed on civil discourse and coordinating actions toward compatible ends. For social workers, the idea of a more just social order is a central aim of the profession. While social work is more definitive and explicit about what this might mean (e.g., human rights), and social constructionists are more apt to leave the response to this question open, the vision and importance of acting in the service of generating a better world is a shared aim.

These commonalities suggest a strong congruence and complementarity between social construction and social work. There are other areas, however, where the differences are more pronounced.

Although both social construction and social work share the word “social,” the significance and meaning of the word differs. Whereas the social is central to the meaning of social construction (for example, the idea of knowledge as socially constituted and sustained), social work, particularly in the Western world, seems uncertain about its social dimension. Much of (Western) social work language is individualistic—consider self-determination and individual rights—as are its practices, most notably, in the field of individual therapy. Social construction’s foregrounding of the social can help illuminate areas in which social work has adopted an individualistic orientation and suggest alternative conceptualizations. For example, for social constructionists, persons are social not only because they are socially interactive but because they are socially constituted. Similarly, as noted previously, what is termed the environment can be considered a social construction, not a “thing” that exists unambiguously and independently. These expanded uses of “social” would bring social work’s understanding of persons and environments more in line with its name.

A second example of differences in the use of the social can be seen in the social constructionist notion of relational responsibility, which reframes individual actions as relational ones (McNamee and Gergen, 1999). These authors write, “We are drawn to the possibility that there are no untoward events (crimes, injustices, inhumanity) to which we have not all made a contribution, whether by our language, actions, or physical existence” (17). While this position is embraced by some practitioners (see Gardner’s chapter in this volume), a more individualistic orientation seems to guide programs aimed at particular marginalized classes of people (see Keenan’s chapter in this volume).

Whereas social construction maintains a critical stance toward science, particularly towards claims of self-referential authority or incorrigible knowledge (e.g., Gergen, 2009), social work has an ambivalent standpoint. One expression of the latter is the “social work as science or art” arguments that appear periodically. Recently, the popularity of evidence-based practice and its association with traditional research (e.g., experimentation, measurement) seems to be moving social work away from a critical perspective. In this sense, social work, at least in the United States, seems intellectually conservative relative to its progressive social views. An explanation for this schism can be found in the history of the social work profession and its tenuous position in the academy. Acceptance as an academic discipline (i.e., a social science) is facilitated by the adoption of scientific canons. While social constructionists do not eschew research, they tend not to privilege its authority nor restrict its expressions.

An extension of the above difference is that social constructionists, relative to social workers, focus more on the function of beliefs than their veracity. That is, while the notion of truths (small t and plural) seem evident in many of social work’s positions on diversity and marginalization, it seems to be put aside when considering science and research. In contrast, social constructionists see truth as local and historically and culturally embedded and reject the idea of establishing a universal truth through research.

Understandably, in many ways social work remains mired in its modernist roots, and, therefore, the differences with social construction reflect their relative modernist and postmodernist orientations, respectively. For example, the shift from language as representative to constitutive and the de-privileging of science do not have the same currency within social work as they do within social construction. On the other hand, the integration of social constructionist ideas has shown potential for changing how social work is understood and practiced. One illustration is Parton’s and O’Byrne’s (2000) constructive approach that “emphasizes process, plurality of both knowledge and voice, possibility and the relational quality of knowledge. It is affirmative and reflexive and focuses on dialogue, listening to and talking with the other” (184). Other less formally articulated but no less innovative applications have been taken up by practitioners in a variety of ways. The chapters in this book illustrate many of these applications and the possibilities for new ways of doing social work.