scholarly journals A critique of the social constructionist and relativistic cultural conception of child abuse

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Christopher O Akpan ◽  
Samuel Akpan Bassey
Keyword(s):  
Child Abuse ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Reality ◽  
Critical Methods

Some social scientists and philosophers tend to think that 'child abuse' is a socially constructed and culturally relativistic term than an objective phenomenon. This stems from the divergent cultural views of what characterize abuses. This work argues that child abuse necessarily should not be considered as a social construct. Using the textual analytic and critical methods of philosophizing, the work explores a few relevant but intriguing facts of child abuse and more importantly the challenges connected with socially constructed and culturally relativistic conceptions of this phenomenon. The paper submits that; if humans could appeal to 'nature eye-view' they could perceive the natural bonding relationship which culminates in the congenial protection of the young by parents; hence, would agree that any aberration of such relationship would constitute abuse. This work would engage readers to understand child abuse as a prevalent cross-cultural reality, and to that extent, instigate them to condemn it wherever it occurs.

scholarly journals Navigating cross-cultural research: methodological and ethical considerations

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1935) ◽  
pp. 20201245
Author(s):  
Tanya Broesch ◽  
Alyssa N. Crittenden ◽  
Bret A. Beheim ◽  
Aaron D. Blackwell ◽  
John A. Bunce ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Involvement ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cross Cultural Research ◽  
Increasing Demand

The intensifying pace of research based on cross-cultural studies in the social sciences necessitates a discussion of the unique challenges of multi-sited research. Given an increasing demand for social scientists to expand their data collection beyond WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) populations, there is an urgent need for transdisciplinary conversations on the logistical, scientific and ethical considerations inherent to this type of scholarship. As a group of social scientists engaged in cross-cultural research in psychology and anthropology, we hope to guide prospective cross-cultural researchers through some of the complex scientific and ethical challenges involved in such work: (a) study site selection, (b) community involvement and (c) culturally appropriate research methods. We aim to shed light on some of the difficult ethical quandaries of this type of research. Our recommendation emphasizes a community-centred approach, in which the desires of the community regarding research approach and methodology, community involvement, results communication and distribution, and data sharing are held in the highest regard by the researchers. We argue that such considerations are central to scientific rigour and the foundation of the study of human behaviour.

The Social Construction of Human Kinds

Hypatia ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 716-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Metaphysical Claim ◽  
Human Kinds ◽  
Response Dependence ◽  
Human Kind

Social construction theorists face a certain challenge to the effect that they confuse the epistemic and the metaphysical: surely our conceptions of something are influenced by social practices, but that doesn't show that the nature of the thing in question is so influenced. In this paper I take up this challenge and offer a general framework to support the claim that a human kind is socially constructed, when this is understood as a metaphysical claim and as a part of a social constructionist debunking project. I give reasons for thinking that a conferralist framework is better equipped to capture the social constructionist intuition than rival accounts of social properties, such as a constitution account and a response‐dependence account, and that this framework helps to diagnose what is at stake in the debate between the social constructionists and their opponents. The conferralist framework offered here should be welcomed by social constructionists looking for firm foundations for their claims, and for anyone else interested in the debate over the social construction of human kinds.

E-Commerce as Knowledge Management

2011 ◽  
pp. 2768-2787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel McLean ◽  
Nigel M. Blackie
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
The Social ◽  
Business To Consumer ◽  
Commercial Organizations ◽  
And Control

This chapter constructs the concept of e-commerce as knowledge management. The socially constructed approach to knowledge management is adopted. Through qualitative research, rooted in the Social Constructionist-Critical Theory paradigm, the chapter examines how consumers use the Internet in commercially related activity. Through semi-structured interviews with consumers three main themes are identified and explored (interaction with commercial organizations, consumer-to-consumer interaction, power and control in business-to-consumer interaction). The chapter concludes that the Internet facilitates the construction and sharing of knowledge amongst consumers, but appears to strengthen barriers and boundaries between consumers and companies. An illustration of how companies could effectively utilize the Internet to communicate with customers is offered in an analysis of a discussion forum.

Devenir mujer en el siglo XXI, una comprensión psicoanalítica. / Becoming a woman in the XXI century, a psychoanalytic perspective.

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (08) ◽  
pp. 215-225
Author(s):  
Lorena Biason J. ◽  
Marcela Ramírez M.
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Projective Identification ◽  
Social Aspect ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Desde la idea de un psiquismo social y en el entendimiento que el individuo es una construcción social, se interroga el psiquismo de la mujer, quien en su devenir y en su complejo proceso de adquisición de la identidad, encuentra como fuente de sentido desde lo social, la ley patriarcal imperante que la ubica en un lugar de menor valor en la sociedad.Los padres, principalmente a través de la identificación proyectiva, juegan un rol determinante en la recreación de estas significaciones imaginarias sociales y el psicoanálisis, con un constructo teórico que no puede conceptualizar sino desde lo social, podría banalizar un sistema de violencia, mediante un sistema racional y socialmente construido. Based on the idea of a social psychism and understanding the individual as a social construct is that we look at the female psychism. The occurrence and development of the women’s psyche, as well as her complex process of identity formation finds a source of meaning, from the social perspective, in the prevailing patriarchal law which positions her in a place of less value in society.Parents, mainly through projective identification, play a decisive role in the recreation of these social imaginary meanings. Psychoanalysis, with a theoretical construct unable to conceptualize but from the social aspect, might trivialize a system of violence by means of a rational and socially constructed system.

Reconsidering Race

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Louis Gates, Jr
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Age Of Discovery ◽  
The Way

Race is one of the most elusive phenomena of social life. While we generally know it when we see it, it's not an easy concept to define. Social science literature has argued that race is a Western, sociopolitical concept that emerged with the birth of modern imperialism, whether in the sixteenth century (the Age of Discovery) or the eighteenth century (the Age of Enlightenment). This book points out that there is a disjuncture between the way race is conceptualized in the social science and medical literature: some of the modern sciences employ racial and ethnic categories. As such, race has a physical, as opposed to a purely social, dimension. The book argues that in order to more fully understand what we mean by race, social scientists need to engage genetics, medicine, and health. To be sure, the long shadow of eugenics and the Nazi use of scientific racism have cast a pall over the effort to understand this complicated relationship between social science and race. But while the text rejects pseudoscience and hierarchical ways of looking at race, it makes the claim that it is time to reassess the Western-based, social construction paradigm. The chapters in this book consider three fundamental tensions in thinking about race: one between theories that see race as fixed or malleable; a second between the idea that race is a universal but modern Western concept and the idea that it has a deeper and more complicated cultural history; and a third between sociopolitical and biological/biomedical concepts of race. Arguing that race is not merely socially constructed, the chapters offer a collection of views on the way that social scientists must reconsider the idea of race in the age of genomics.

Racial reality and unreality1

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karim Murji
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Constructionist Approach ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the debates on what race is. For some time, the dominant social constructionist approach in the social sciences has insisted that the only proper way to regard race is by refuting any connection with biology. Attention to the many ways in which race is socially constructed has been important; but, while a construction is not ‘unreal’, there is a common further step in which race is thereby deemed to be not valid. The rejection of race tends to treat race as something that would be ‘real’ if it were located in science and biology. The chapter then shows how recent developments in the natural sciences and changing views on the relationship between the natural and social sciences problematise that view. Yet in opposition to post-race views, critical scholars can then be seen to draw on conventional categories of race to show that racialised inequality still matters.

Netflix and Chill: Teaching Sexual Scripts in a Sociology Classroom

2021 ◽  
pp. 0092055X2110336
Author(s):  
Hubert Izienicki
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Behavior ◽  
Human Sexuality ◽  
Sexual Scripts ◽  
Sexual Script ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Online Learning Environments ◽  
Class Time ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Sexual Behavior

Whereas most sociologists consider sexuality a social construct, the general public tends to view it in more essentialist terms. This tendency is commonly manifested in the idea of sexual drives as internal overpowering biological forces guiding human sexual behavior. To counter this narrative, sociologists William Simon and John H. Gagnon introduced a concept of sexual scripts to demonstrate the social underpinnings of sexuality and the narratives surrounding it. Drawing on their insights, I used the popular phenomenon of “Netflix and Chill” to teach students about the socially constructed nature of human sexuality. During class time, I ask students to put together a sexual script—step-by-step instructions—on how to successfully complete Netflix and Chill. This activity teaches students about the learned aspects of our sexual behavior and is effective both for in-person and online learning environments.

‘I Feel I Am Not Human’: Investigating the Relationship between Discourse and Subjectivity in the Lives of Persons Experiencing Panic Attacks

2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Kenneth G. Wilson ◽  
Kerry McLuckie
Keyword(s):  
Panic Disorder ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Panic Attacks ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Internal Problem ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Treatable Condition ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

The study described in this paper investigated the ways in which panic and panic disorder are socially constructed, and how these constructions are involved in the formation of the subjectivities of those persons experiencing panic. In adopting a social constructionist perspective, it is proposed that all understandings of panic are informed by the social and historical contexts from which they emerge. The study investigates how linguistic practices, organised into different discourses, construct accounts of panic which go on to constitute particular forms of knowledge about panic. Discourse analysis was used to analyse media articles, radio interviews, and other examples of “panic talk”. The analysis yielded discourses that are involved in the construction and understanding of panic as a phenomenon. It was noted that panic was constructed in terms of abnormality, as a treatable condition, as an internal problem, and as an agent that has the potential to change people. The construction of panic according to these discourses had significant effects on the formation of subjectivity, in that it contributed to the formation of a “compromised” self that was “always-already” different, and abnormal. Lastly it was noted that the construction of subjectivity in these terms was related to discursive practices, involving the regulation of self.

E-Commerce as Knowledge Management

2011 ◽  
pp. 1618-1637
Author(s):  
Rachel McLean ◽  
Nigel M. Blackie
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
The Social ◽  
Business To Consumer ◽  
Commercial Organizations ◽  
And Control

This chapter constructs the concept of e-commerce as knowledge management. The socially constructed approach to knowledge management is adopted. Through qualitative research, rooted in the Social Constructionist-Critical Theory paradigm, the chapter examines how consumers use the Internet in commercially related activity. Through semi-structured interviews with consumers three main themes are identified and explored (interaction with commercial organizations, consumer-to-consumer interaction, power and control in business-to-consumer interaction). The chapter concludes that the Internet facilitates the construction and sharing of knowledge amongst consumers, but appears to strengthen barriers and boundaries between consumers and companies. An illustration of how companies could effectively utilize the Internet to communicate with customers is offered in an analysis of a discussion forum.

Back to the Future? The Emergence of a Geneticized Conceptualization of Race in Sociology

2015 ◽  
Vol 661 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reanne Frank
Keyword(s):  
Genome Project ◽  
Biomedical Sciences ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Difference ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Human Genome Project ◽  
Future Work

Discoveries in human molecular genetics have reanimated unresolved debates over the nature of human difference. In this context, the idea that race has a discrete and measurable genetic basis is currently enjoying a resurgence. The return of a biologized construction of race is somewhat surprising because one of the primary pronouncements to come out of the Human Genome Project was one of human genetic similarity (i.e., humans are over 99.9 percent similar at the molecular level). Perhaps even more surprising is that genetically based notions of race have not been restricted to the biomedical sciences but have recently emerged within the social sciences, specifically sociology, to explicitly challenge a socially constructed understanding of race. Drawing on existing critiques, this article describes problems in recent sociological scholarship and the potential role of social scientists in future work occurring at the intersection of race and genetics. I argue that recent scholarly work meant to challenge the notion of race as a social construction actually makes a powerful case for its continued utility.

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