Social Constructionism

1. Introduction; 2. Giambattista Vico; 3. Phenomenology; 4. Hermeneutics; 5. Marxism and language; 6. Lev Vygotsky; 7. Meanings and perspectives: George Herbert Mead and Jakob von Uexkull; 8. Ludwig Wittgenstein: 'shewing the fly out of the bottle'; 9. Gregory Bateson: a cybernetic view of communication and human interaction; 10. Sociologies - micro and macro: Garfinkel, Goffman and Giddens; 11. Sources of the self; 12. Michel Foucault and his challenges; 13. Discourse analysis; 14. Ken and Mary Gergen; 15. Rom Harre; 16. John Shotter; 17. Concluding remarks.

Andy Lock is Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand. Tom Strong is a Professor in the Division of Applied Psychology at the University of Calgary, Canada.

'An amazing accomplishment. Andy Lock and Tom Strong succeed in drawing together an enormous range of scholarship to shape current dialogues on social construction. With their articulate, well-balanced, and personalized accounts of these wide-ranging contributions, this impressive work will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students alike.' Kenneth J. Gergen, Swarthmore College and author of Relational Being 'Andy Lock and Tom Strong skilfully situate current approaches to social constructionsim within an unbroken flow of work stretching back into the history of western thought as well as into places where it should develop further. Their work opens up whole new realms for possible empirical inquiries in the future. This is an exceptionally comprehensive survey that any psychologist interested in social constructionism should own. The authors are to be commended.' John Shotter, University of New Hampshire