Social Constructionism: A Postmodern Lens on the Dynamics of Social Learning

Abstract

It is widely accepted in many societies that we are all individuals, with our own thoughts and minds, our own abilities, emotions and personalities, our own free will. In the western world our education systems are based on these ideas, as are our theories of education, our psychologies of behaviour, and our day-to-day communications. How else might we think of ourselves and each other? Social constructionists argue, and there is strong support from neuroscience for this, that we create our worlds and our perceptions of our worlds collaboratively. As our technologies of communication develop and become more ubiquitous, it can be helpful to consider how we might theorise their significance in the production of knowledge. What we think about who we are, and about what education is, are discursively produced. These underlying ideas, that we take for granted, have a significant impact on how we approach the use of technologies for teaching and learning, and on how we interpret the interactions that result.