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Social Constructionism, Discourse and Realism
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Social Constructionism, Discourse and Realism

Edited by:
  • Ian Parker - Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

June 1998 | 176 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Social Constructionism, Discourse, and Realism charts a clear and accessible path through some of the key debates in contemporary social psychology. Drawing on the wider critical and discursive turn in the human sciences, it explores comprehensively the many claims about what we can know of reality in social constructionist and discursive research in psychology. Key questions addressed by an internationally renowned cast of contributors include: + Should pragmatic and relativist views of meaning and the world necessarily be adopted by discourse analysts? + Where is "the real" in contemporary critical research in psychology? + How does the turn-to-language affect, encourage, or inhibit perspectives for change? These relativist versus realist tensions go to the heart of current theoretical and methodological issues, not only within psychology but across the social and human sciences. By mapping the connections between theory, method, and politics in social research and placing these within the context of the broader social constructionist and discursive debates, this wide ranging book offers the reader an invaluable survey of the current debates. Social Constructionism, Discourse, and Realism will be essential reading for all students of social psychology, social constructionism, discourse analysis, and the philosophy of social sciences.

Rom Harr[ac]e
Foreword
Ian Parker
Realism, Relativism and Critique in Psychology
 
PART ONE: DEBATES
Vivien Burr
Overview
Realism, Relativism, Social Constructionism and Discourse

 
Jonathan Potter
Fragments in the Realization of Relativism
Andrew Collier
Language, Practice and Realism
Ruth Merttens
What Is To Be Done? (With Apologies to Lenin!)
Steven D Brown and Joan Pujol with Beryl C Curt
As One in a Web? Discourse, Materiality and the Place of Ethics
Carla Willig
Social Constructionism and Revolutionary Socialism
A Contradiction in Terms?

 
 
PART TWO: COMMENTARIES
Don Foster
Across the S-S Divide
Maritza Montero
The Perverse and Pervasive Character of Reality
Some Comments on the Effects of Monism and Dualism

 
Bronwyn Davies
Psychology's Subject
A Commentary on the Relativism/Realism Debate

 
Kenneth J Gergen
Constructionism and Realism
How Are We To Go On?

 

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