Social Construction and Difference

This course accepts that Difference is mainly caused by Social Construction. Social Construction is a Sociological theory that suggests that the ‘objects’ of thought and belief about everyday life are constructed from the deep beliefs of each individual society. So each society (whether defined by geographical or historical position) may take radically different views about what is really happening within that society.

So, ‘Difference’ will have many ways of being defined according to which society is deciding on who is different. Our society, for instance, makes prominent differences due to ‘race’ (in a way that would not be understandable to a Roman citizen at the time of Christ) and ‘intelligence’ (in a way that would not be understandable to someone in the medieval world). That is not to say that the Roman citizen or the Medieval peasant would be unaware of race or intelligence, just that the import given to it would be considerably different. It would be fair to say that our society is hyper-aware of difference in ‘race’ and ‘intelligence’ and tends to magnify the importance of these differences.

It should be noted that although much of the assessment of differentness will spring from deep (often unconscious) societal beliefs, some such assessments may be completely random and lacking in foundation.