What is social constructivism?

Social constructivism is a social learning theory that was developed by psychologist Lev Vygotsky. With this concept, Vygotsky wanted to prove that learning didn’t just happen solely via being taught new information. Rather, he believed that cognitive functions are developed from social interactions, and thus learning also occurs when people (specifically young children) interact with others.

According to Vygotsky’s 1978 study, Interaction between learning and development:

“Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level and, later on, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.”

What is a social construct?

Have you ever wondered why a post-secondary education is considered to be important? I mean, the material you learn isn’t as practical as actual work experience. Or have you ever wondered why each bill of money has a specific value? I mean, it is just a piece of colored paper. Well, these two things (and many others) have social value because of social construction.

Social constructionism is this sociological theory that believes all things that have social meaning are created by individuals and by societies. In other words, individuals construct meanings for things that would otherwise be meaningless. And as more people join the group (or society), the meanings of these things become reality because large amounts of people believe it. This is the basic process of a social construct.

What is a social problem and how do you define it?

You are walking down a street downtown one day and see an entire block, maybe longer, of homeless people asking for money. You wonder to yourself how something like this can even exist. Well, it’s a social problem (or social issue) that hasn’t been solved yet.

A social problem is a condition or societal behaviour that negatively affects people (i.e. poverty and homelessness) and that needs to be addressed and repaired. However, there are two requirements that need to be met before a condition is constituted as a social problem.

The first requirement, which is called the objective component, is that the condition must affect large amounts of people in a damaging way. The second requirement, which is called the subjective component, is that the condition needs to have a perception that it has to be addressed.

Economic Sociology: Emile Durkheim’s Division of Labor in Society

(Emile Durkheim)

In Emile Durkheim’s book, The Division of Labor in Society, he describes the differences between a society where people have similar tasks (mechanical solidarity) and a society where people have different, individual tasks (organic solidarity).

He says that in modern times, society is not gelled together by people’s similarities in tasks and beliefs. Rather, social solidarity is kept together by people’s individualism and specialties because it forces them to rely on one another, as citizens of modern society perform a narrow range of tasks.

Economic Sociology: Max Weber and ‘The Protestant Ethic and Capitalism’

(Max Weber)

Max Weber was raised by parents who held polar ideologies about life. His father, a bureaucrat, enjoyed the pleasures of life. His mother, on the other hand, was a devout Calvinist who lived an ascetic life and constantly pursued salvation. Because of the differences in his parent’s personality, Weber was able to experience the two sides of living, even though it affected him psychologically as the tension of having to choose a side played a great deal of stress on his mind.

In his early college career, he followed in his father’s footsteps by joining a fraternity, where he developed socially by going out and drinking large amounts of beer with his frat brothers. However, as he got older, he became more like his mother. In his late 20s, he developed a compulsion for work and lived ascetically.

It was these first-hand experiences (and extensive research in religious studies) that helped him write his most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and Capitalism (affiliate link) in 1904-1905.

What is Economic Sociology?

(Max Weber)

Economic sociology, which was coined by William Stanley Jevons in the late 1800s, is used by many sociologists to examine how the processes of the economy affect the organisms of society and vice versa.

This field of study is broken up into two periods, classical and contemporary.

Must Know Crime and Society Concept: Differential Association

(Edwin Sutherland)

Social learning theories use the cognitive processes of learning through observation or a direct instruction to explain social occurrences. One example of what learning theories seek to explain is how people adopt criminal behavior.

Edwin Sutherland, who is considered to be one of the most influential criminologists of the twentieth century, explains with his popular theory (Differential Association or Learning Theory) that there are nine principles to how someone learns the attitudes, values, motives, and techniques of criminal behavior:

Sociology of Crime: Functionalist Perspective

Within the functionalist school of thought, crime is viewed as an activity that serves a positive purpose for society. Emile Durkheim, a functionalist, stated in "On the Normality of Crime" that crime can help to reassess and change laws, increase group solidarity, and set boundaries for what is an acceptable behavior and what is not.