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Sociology vocabulary · Theories and Thinkers

Social construction

Meaning in sociology, with examples

nounCommon term

In sociology, social construction means: The idea that many things we take as natural or obvious, such as gender roles, childhood or race, are created and maintained by people through shared meanings and practices.

In Turkish: toplumsal inşa, sosyal inşa, toplumsal kurgu

How it is used

Associated with Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality (1966). Students often write that something is 'socially constructed'. This does not mean it is unreal or unimportant: socially constructed categories can have very real consequences.

Example sentences

  1. Historians of childhood argue that the modern idea of childhood is a social construction.

  2. Seeing adolescence as a social construction helps explain why it looks different across cultures.

Common collocations

  • socially constructed
  • social construction of reality
  • social construction of gender
  • social constructionism
  • genderThe roles, behaviour and identities that a society attaches to being a woman or a man, as distinct from the biological differences described by the word sex.
  • raceA way of classifying people into groups on the basis of perceived physical differences such as skin colour, which sociologists treat as a social rather than a biological category.
  • symbolic interactionismA theoretical approach that studies how people create and share meanings in everyday interaction, using symbols such as language and gestures.
  • identityA person's sense of who they are, shaped both by how they see themselves and by the social groups, such as nation, class, gender or religion, they belong to or are placed in.

More terms: Theories and Thinkers

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