Constructionism: the making of meaning

Constructionism is well removed from the objectivism found in the positivist stance. In some areas it seems to have replaced objectivism as the dominant paradigm. If this is indeed the case, and to the extent to which it is the case, we are witnessing the end of a very long tradition. Objectivism—the notion that truth and meaning reside in their objects independendy of any consciousness—has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy, was carried along in Scholastic realism throughout the Middle Ages, and rose to its zenith in the age of the so-called Enlightenment. The belief that there is objective truth and that appropriate methods of inquiry can bring us accurate and certain knowledge of that truth has been the epistemological ground of Western science. While it would be extremely premature to sound the death knell of this centuries-old tradition, foundationalism⁵ of this kind has certainly come under heavy attack and constructionism is very much part of the artillery brought against it.

What, then, is constructionism? It is the view that all knowledge, and therefore all meaningful reality as such, is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context.

Source: Michael J Crotty (1998), The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process, SAGE Publications Ltd; First edition.