Social Constructionist perspective

" Consider the social constructionist perspective. How do we "build worlds" through communication? Think of some ideas we talk about in our culture that may not exist in other cultures. How do these concepts contribute to our happiness or success (or the lack of these) in our culture?"


We build worlds through communication, by constructing them with ideas about norms, cultures, what we have been taught, beliefs, values and traditions. These ideas are shared among people in groups, and they believe that the world that they have constructed is reality. Its difficult to see outside of the world, you know unless you experience it. If you are taught about the world in a certain way, that is they way you will believe the world to be. 

Some ideas that we talk about in our culture that might not exist in other cultures, are things like freedom of religion and equality between men and women. In some other cultures there might be tribes of people that may have a certain belief system among their community, and the only religion that exists in their mind is their own. Here we are aware that other religions exist, and we  have the freedom to explore, and choose to fallow whatever religion we believe in. Here we talk about women and men and how they should be treated equally, but in other parts of the world, people may believe that women and men each have a “place” and they stick to that norm.