relational leading, relational coaching, relational ethics, conflict reduction, multi-party decision-making, and organizational consulting. Again, although in a wide variety of settings authors focus on different types of organizations, a great deal of overlap can be seen among the various practices, based on the social constructionist framework that guides their activities.
Section 5: Practices in Education (Thalia Dragonis, Section Editor)
Schools are powerful places to create learning communities that facilitate the development of all participants. Collaborative communities can be achieved by promoting conversational and relational practices in schools. In this section of the book, chapters treat such topics as collaborative and appreciative pedagogy, relational evaluation, school bullying, building school culture, school counselling, minority inclusion, whole systems change, youth at risk, critical education and action learning. The overall tone of these offerings is hopeful and full of potential for achieving innovations in schools, without great expense or overly elaborate interventions. Cultivating an orientation of possibility (as opposed to constraint), based on social constructionist viewpoints, serves as the springboard for progressive changes in a student's capacities for success in school.
Section 6: Practices in Healthcare (Murilo S. Moscheta, Section Editor)
The technological development of medicine, combined with the strengthening of biomedical discourse jeopardize the intrinsically relational character of healthcare. The constructionist emphasis on meaning, collaboration and appreciation adds promising possibilities for improving patients’ and health professionals’ quality of life. In this section of the book, chapters treat such topics as narrative medicine, collaborative healthcare, community action for health, appreciative healthcare, medical education, aging, sexual diversity, play, addiction and bereavement. This section of the book is vital to the efforts of the medical establishment today to reorient patient care so that it is centred on the patient's interests and values rather than on the expertise and power position of the medical authorities.
Section 7: Community Practices (Marie L. Hoskins, Section Editor)
Political disputes, polarization of ideas and various forms of conflict occur daily around the world. It is necessary to enhance the power of dialogue, to embrace differences, and to view conflict as an opportunity to construct new realities. In this section of the book, chapters discuss narrative mediation, inclusion practices, placemaking in communities, social welfare, community conferencing, transitional societies, intergenerativity in communities, and practices of religious communities. Scarcely anything in our political and social worlds right now is more important than creating practices for conflict reduction and mutual understanding. A social constructionist framework encourages forms of dialogue and interchange that facilitate the potential for finding peaceful resolutions to our persistent problems and conflicts.
As editors, our hope is that the enormous riches offered by this chorus of contributors will serve to advance social constructionist approaches to knowledge building and practice in the world. We dearly hope that readers of this volume, whom we envision as researchers, theorists and practitioners – students and professionals – will be inspired to further develop these ideas in a world that sorely needs new resources for creating more just and equitable societies and new potentials for saving the planet itself.
1 Constructionist Theory and the Blossoming of Practice
Kenneth J. Gergen
The stunning growth of the natural sciences in the 20th century was accompanied by an unbridled optimism. It was just such optimism that also sparked the development of the ‘social sciences’. If inquiry in the natural sciences could lead to the eradication of disease, the harnessing of energy, air flight, and powerful weaponry, one could only imagine the potentials of the social sciences. Could we not cure mental illness, ensure effective education, create profitable organizations, eradicate war, and more? The logic for realizing such societal gains was based on a positivist model of science in which knowledge is established in the basic or pure sciences – such as chemistry, biology, and physics – and then made available to society for broad application. With increased knowledge of the brain, for example, new practices would be anticipated in medicine, education, aviation, athletics, and so on. Thus, in the social sciences, disciplines such as psychology, economics, and sociology could hope to generate fundamental knowledge of broad applicability. Little now remains of the early optimism. Neither the voluminous theoretical offerings nor the staggering accumulation of research findings in the social sciences have contributed significantly to societal well-being.
During the waning years of the 20th century, a range of conversations across the academic community began to challenge positivist assumptions about the nature of scientific truth, objectivity, and value-neutral knowledge. These dialogues ultimately gave rise to what is now characterized as a social constructionist (or constructivist)1 orientation to knowledge. As deliberations on this orientation have matured and made their way into circles of professional practice, the results have been astonishing. A spirited wave of innovation has swept across the professions, across many regions of the world, and its force has continued to the present. Early innovations in fields of therapy, education, and organizational development were soon followed by new practices in social work, law, counseling, cartography, practical theology, community building, and conflict reduction. These were followed by developments in social justice, healthcare, and welfare programs. Also noticeable were the ways in which innovations carried across borders of practice. New practices in law drew from developments in therapy; new welfare programs found resources in organizational development, and so on. Further, energizing dialogues between the communities of ‘knowledge makers’ and ‘practitioners’ emerged. The concept of ‘scholar practitioners’ is now a commonplace phrase.
How are we to understand this mutually enriching relationship between social constructionist ideas and the flowering of innovative practices? What is it about the constructionist dialogues that practitioners have found so inspiring? Can we anticipate a continuing harvest of such magnitude; are there forces that threaten a sustained prosperity? It is to just such questions that the remainder of this chapter is devoted.
Scanning the Contours of Constructionist Theory
To appreciate the dynamic relationship between constructionist theory and innovations in practice, let us briefly return to its origins in the late 20th century. More extensive accounts can be found in a variety of sources (Arbib and Hesse, 1986; Burr, 2004; Gergen, 1994; 2015; Hacking, 1999; Hjelm, 2014; Lock and Strong, 2010; McNamee and Hosking, 2012; Potter, 1996; Weinberg, 2014). However, it is this very variety that calls attention to constructionism as an unfolding dialogue as opposed to a fixed theory with credited authorship. In general, however, one may trace the more immediate roots to the intellectual tsunami of the late 20th century, variously termed postmodern or post-foundational. Placed in question were the promises of unlimited progress through science. Such promises depended largely on the belief that because of their reliance on systematic and unbiased observation, the sciences could provide objective and value-free knowledge of the world. Armed with such knowledge, humankind could thus move beyond armchair speculation and ideological bias to predict and control the forces of nature. The harnessing of electrical energy, the curing of deadly diseases, and the developing of air flight were among the many illustrations of potential success. Despite these gains, the power of the natural science approach was not without limitations. Three lines of broadly shared critique played a major role in the decline of faith in the natural science approach, and the development of a social constructionist consciousness.
The first movement centers around value critique, or the unmasking of claims to value-neutral knowledge. As argued, all descriptions and explanations of the
