The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge
by Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann
Book Summary Information
Author: Peter L. Berger, Thomas LuckmannEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1967-07-11
ISBN: 0385058985
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Anchor
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780385058988
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Book Reviews of The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge
Book Review: An illustration of commomplace social construction
Summary: 5 Stars
I use this extremely interesting book in a sociology of education course for master's degree students from a broad range of disciplines. Most have never taken a course in sociology or a closely related discipline, and to many the material seems alien, contrived, and contrary to the world as they know it. Making Berger and Luckmann accessible and persuasive to those who find it dense and unreal may best be done through use of concrete examples from the everyday world of the students themselves. Something like the following can be helpful:
An SAT exam consists of nothing more than a set of questions which are of no great interest in themselves. Taking the test, in and of itself, is not physically demanding, and the questions are not the sort that would cause discomfort or pleasure or any other response worth noting.
However, taking the SAT is a crucial point in a social process of selection, socialization, and allocation which may have profound consequences for one's entire future. Moreover one's score on the test may easily be construed as a measure of one's intellectual worth, and perhaps as a measure of one's occupational or moral worth, as well.
It is the relationship between the test and the very real consequences one anticipates because our society is organized in a certain way that provides the socially created meaning of the SAT.
Furthermore, the meaning of the questions on the exam is determined by their incorporation into a norm-referenced test. The meaning of the norm-referenced test is determined by its incorporation into a college admission process. The meaning of the college admission process is determined by its incorporation into a process whereby we determine who gets jobs, money, and occupational prestige. The meaning of jobs, money, and occupational prestige are determined by their place in a stratified social system that places substantial emphasis on material attainment. And so on.
Now, what would the SAT or, for that matter, jobs, money, occupational prestige ... mean in the Orinoco Delta of the Amazon River where indigenous people are isolated from the modern world. They survive by eating raw fish and more than one hundred varieties of naturally occurring plants, and the climate is tropical. There is no division of labor other than by sex; money does not exist; parents teach children by example all they need to know to live this particular life. Inhabitants take this socially created world as real, once and for all.
In other words, the SAT, jobs, money, occupational prestige, and so on have not been socially created -- they have no meaning --in this tropical society, but in our world they are conspicuous, socially created presences that we cannot ignore.
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