Social Construction Research Paper

Social Construction Social construction is assumed to be a jointly constructed understandings of shared reality of how the world works. It explains that our realities are different due to our experiences and elements. Who then or what group determine which experiences are the reality norms? To answer this question a look at the different categories of social construction will help us to understand this theory of knowledge. Social construction has an effect on what your race is, what class you are and what gender you identify as. Social construction is something you might not be aware of, but may observe or experience like: living in segregation depending on race, gender exclusion and class difference.

In reality, race, class and gender have no meaning at all, they only have meaning because society has denoted it. With social construction theory, it is perceived as a perception of society created by some individuals. It is how we pay attention to the categories that we use to identify oneself, things in the world and the ability of how we process things. Peter L. Berger coined this term in 1966 and was influenced mainly by Max Weber. Weber's main focus was on the empirical realities of rationality as a characteristic of action and rationalization. Berger challenged this and stated

It is one of our main identities to show what environment we are raised in and how we interact with others. This is considered a social construction because what may be valuable to us is sometimes not universal. What determines class varies from one country to another. For example, the water situation in Flint- Michigan late April of 2014. Flint underwent a crisis of non-drinkable water. For western countries this appears to be a crisis, but 85% of people in developing countries do not have access to drinkable water. Approximately 783 million people suffer each day from lack of water and