scholarly journals Book Review: Michael Giudice, Social Construction of Law: Potential and Limits

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-160
Author(s):  
Erin Buckley
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Original Argument

That law is socially constructed is so ubiquitous a statement in law and the humanities as to render itself dangerously close to ‘common sense’. The subheading ‘Potential and Limits’ is the key to Giudice’s original argument in which he suggests that law is both socially constructed; yet retains a ‘natural’ core.  When teaching critical theory, I encourage students to examine anything they understand as ‘common sense’ as a potential blind spot for bias and assumptions deeply ingrained in ideology. As such, the attempt to examine exactly such a potential blind spot is exactly the sort of problem legal philosophy should seek to address.

Law as an Interactive Kind: On the Concept and the Nature of Law

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-149
Author(s):  
Arie Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Causal Relationship ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Concept Of Law ◽  
Theories Of Meaning ◽  
Special Case ◽  
Methodological Difficulties

When exploring the relations between the concept and the nature of law, ample philosophical reflection has been dedicated to the relations between the intension of terms (or the content of concepts) and their extension. Much less consideration has been given to the causal relations between concept and thing within socially constructed entities. This paper examines the interactive causal relationship between law and the concept we have of it and reflects on its implications for legal philosophy. First, it explains the causal role played by concepts in processes of social construction and applies this explanation to the analysis of the special case of law. Second, it compares this causal role played by the concept of law to the role assigned to it in the context of externalist theories of meaning and mental content. Lastly, it demonstrates the advantages of seeing law as an interactive kind in answering some contemporary methodological difficulties stemming from conceptual plurality or uncertainty, and in opening new avenues for research in legal philosophy.

Family Participation in Challenger Baseball: Critical Theory Perspectives

1999 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lupe Castañ ◽  
Claudine Sherrill
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Emotional Support ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Physical Disabilities ◽  
Head Coach ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Field Notes

The purpose was to analyze the social construction of Challenger baseball opportunities in a selected community. Participants were 10 boys and 6 girls with mental and/or physical disabilities (ages 7 to 16 years, M = 11.31), their families, and the head coach. Data were collected through interviews in the homes with all family members, participant observation at practices and games, and field notes. The research design was qualitative, and critical theory guided interpretation. Analytical induction revealed five outcomes that were particularly meaningful as families and coach socially constructed Challenger baseball: (a) fun and enjoyment, (b) positive affect related to equal opportunity and feelings of “normalcy,” (c) social networking/emotional support for families, (d) baseball knowledge and skills, and (e) social interactions with peers.

Ideologies of English in Asia: an editorial

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (271) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Alexandra Grey ◽  
Loy Lising ◽  
Jinhyun Cho
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The West ◽  
Binary Structure ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Local Perspectives ◽  
East West

Abstract That English has spread in Asia is well-known, but this critical reflection, and the five contributions and book review that we hereby introduce, contribute to rectifying the relative absence in the sociology of language literature of studies approaching language ideologies and practices in specific Asian contexts from local perspectives. We are not alone; our inspections of journal archives show that scholars are increasingly responding to this relative absence in recent years. What this special issue offers is further diversity of both authors and cases, and moreover this special issue draws attention to the immutable, binary structure underlying the various globally-circulating discourses of the East and the West as part of investigating how socially constructed East-West binaries interact with language ideologies about English and other languages. It shifts the attention from fixity – East versus West – to diversity, extending East to Easts and West to Wests as our contributors identify and examine multiple, endogenous “imaginative geograph[ies]” (from Arif Dirlik’s [1996] “Chinese history and the question of Orientalism”, History and Theory 35(4): 97) constructed through various Orientalist ideologies. It founds this approach on a combination of the theory of recursive language ideologies and critical Orientalism scholarship. This is generative of new and useful sociolinguistic analyses. Having laid out this theoretical extension, this editorial then provides an overview of the issue’s contributions, which examine how socially constructed East-West binaries are interacting with language ideologies about English and other languages on sub-national scales in various Asian contexts including in Korea, China, Japan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Book Review: L. N. Venkataraman, The Social Construction of Capabilities in a Tamil Village

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 256-258
Author(s):  
G. S. Suresh Babu
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
The Social

L. N. Venkataraman, The Social Construction of Capabilities in a Tamil Village. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2021, 212 pp., ISBN: 9788194829591 (Paperback).

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