The Sage Handbook of Social Constructionist Practice. Группа авторов
offer to the world and for whom these offerings are valuable or not. These themes will reverberate throughout this chapter and this Handbook.
Theory and the Provisioning of Practice
With the contours of a constructionist orientation in place, we return to the question of how to account for the enormous watershed in professional practices accompanying these dialogues. Here it is first helpful to consider some of the reasons why the practical contributions of positivist social science were so unremarkable. At the outset, the alliance of social science with positivist foundationalism, carried with it a range of restrictions. These included limits on the aims of inquiry, assumptions about the nature of the subject matter, the relationship between the observer and the observed, the acceptable forms of explanation, and methods of research. Such restrictions in what constitutes knowledge and its acquisition ultimately limited the potentials of the social sciences in terms of their offerings to society.
For example, the distinction between knowledge making and its application posed a major obstacle to practical innovation. On the one hand, this meant that the research community could proceed in generating and testing theories of sweeping scope, without regard to societal utility. Programs of experimentation, along with complex sampling and statistical procedures, were placed in the service of theories without obvious application. The challenge of application was left to outsiders, often viewed by the research community as parasitic. Thus, for social practitioners such as therapists, organizational leaders, social workers, human service workers, and so on, the academic community had little to offer. And too, should practitioners take the initiative in exploring the scientific offerings, they would frequently encounter an impenetrable thicket of ‘jargon’. They were not the intended audience. The hope that basic social science could contribute to flourishing societal practices began to fade.
The emergence of more practically focused social sciences – such as education, organizational behavior, and social work – did speak more directly to societal needs. However, inquiry in these domains was largely conducted within a positivist paradigm, and thus subject to positivist restrictions and assumptions. For example, one might propose a theory of organizational leadership, and proceed to generate data to support the claims. Counter-claims might soon appear, accompanied by relevant statistics. Conflicts would then ensue regarding the methodological purity of the various findings, the clarity and coherence of the conceptual claims, and so on. More research, more conceptual distinctions … and the route to application was occluded.
Let us turn, then, to the relationship between a constructionist orientation to knowledge and its generative relationship to societal practices. We focus in particular on five animating forces.
Liberation from Authority
Perhaps the chief incitement to innovation resulted from the constructionist challenge to authority. Whether it be philosophical foundations, rational structures, ethical principles, bodies of evidence, the demands of tradition, or divine inspiration, all claims to authority were thrust into question. An enormous literature began to emerge pointing out the socially constructed character of taken-for-granted realities, both in the natural and social sciences. One had reason to ask of any authoritative pronouncement, from whose standpoint, in what context, for what purposes, at what point in culture or time in history, and with what ideological political implications is this given? It wasn't that such claims should thus be dismissed, as indeed all counter-claims were equally without foundations. And for many purposes, one might well wish to sustain existing traditions. However, the removal of any fundamental grounds of legitimacy provided an open door to innovation. If existing traditions of understanding are limiting, oppressive, or contrary to favored values, how else could one proceed? Could one create practices that would realize one's valued goals?
In the social sciences, a pervasive sense of ‘what if …?’ thus became evident. New forms of pedagogy began to emerge, often emphasizing dialogue and collaboration as opposed to mastering the words of authoritative texts. The ideological and political implications of traditional texts were also thrown into question, thus paving the way for more varied, inclusive, and individualized curricula. Perhaps the most radical outcomes of asking ‘what if …?’ emerged in the domain of research methods. Because natural science research had become progressively identified with positivist foundationalism, there had been strong demands for the newly emerging social sciences to adopt positivist methodologies. Such methods were markers of scientific legitimacy. Thus, systematic measurement, statistical tests, and controlled experiments, for example, had become defining criteria of research. However, liberated from positivist foundationalism, imaginations were free to soar. Such wide-ranging creative efforts were often collected under the misleading but useful banner of ‘qualitative research’. One indicator of the magnitude of this growth was the success of Denzin and Lincoln's pivotal volume, The handbook of qualitative research. The book was first published in 1994, but so energetic and innovative were the practices that were inspired, by 2018 the work had gone into its fifth edition.
These adventures in the social sciences were echoed as well across many domains of social practice. In the mental health professions, for example, the authority of diagnostic labeling came under attack, along with the presumption of the therapist or psychiatrist as ‘the knower.’ Why, it was asked, were the understandings and values of the client or patient so frequently dismissed? As feminists added, the power structure of psychiatry leaves female clients in the position of depending on a male authority to know more about their mental lives than they themselves. Similarly, in healthcare, questions were raised about the way doctors were so often deaf to the values and experiences of their patients. In the organizational world, the shortcomings of top-down control became topics of intense discussion. The knowledge of top management could be narrow, and oblivious to the ideas, needs, and values within the organization and the surrounding culture. Such critique opened the way to developing a new range of more collaboratively based practices, the focus of later chapters in this Handbook.
Inclusion and the Energizing of Innovation
While the constructionist dialogues are broadly liberating in their implications, they do not give rise to a ‘new truth’ to which everyone must subscribe. Acknowledged are the multiple perspectives, values, and ways of life created by the peoples of the world, and the rich potentials of sharing. The advantages of this inclusion for the development of professional practices cannot be overstated. There is first a farewell to the ingurgitating conflict among various schools, disciplines, guilds, and the like for ontological primacy. The longstanding conflicts within the world of psychotherapy are illustrative. Early psychoanalytic claims to ‘truth about the mind’ gave way to a succession of battles among schools – Jungian, Rogerian, Behaviorist, systemic, cognitive, and bio-medical among them – for preeminent authority. Similar battles may be found in the fields of education, organizational management, counseling, and so on. Such battles have only been intensified by the demands for quantifiable evidence. From a constructionist perspective, however, schools of practice represent different forms of understanding, with different values, goals, and pragmatic potentials. The chief question then, is not which most accurately reflects the nature of the world, but when, where, how, and for whom might an orientation be useful. Here we replace a tradition of either/or with an invitation to curiosity. For example, are there enclaves for whom classic psychoanalysis is perfectly suited, while others might benefit from positive regard, and still others from a reinforcement regimen? And does this not open the possibility that indigenous healing or spiritual traditions might be ‘just right’ for certain people at certain times? We move, then, from the establishment of self-contained and defensive enclaves of practice, to thriving in an ecology of possibilities (Anderson, 1997; McNamee and Gergen, 1992).
It is just such a context that also invites the crossing of traditional boundaries among disciplines and professions. When one's concerns are primarily pragmatic, there is no single tradition of understanding or practice from which resources may be drawn. In opening a sea of possibilities so are the creative energies set in motion. In program evaluation, for example, one might think beyond traditional measurement practices, to include phenomenological reports, focus groups, and participant observation practices. Or, a practitioner concerned