This book charts a clear and accessible path through some of the key debates in contemporary psychology. Drawing upon the wider critical and discursive turn in the human sciences, Social Constructionism, Discourse and Realism explores comprehensively the many claims about what we can know of `reality' in social constructionist and discursive research in psychology.
Relativist versus realist tensions go to the heart of current theoretical and methodological issues, not only within psychology but across the social and human sciences. By mapping the connections between theory, method and politics in social research and placing these within the context of the broader social constructionist and discursive debates, the internationally renowned contributors offer the reader an invaluable survey of the debates.
Foreword - Rom Harr[ac]e
Realism, Relativism and Critique in Psychology - Ian Parker
PART ONE: DEBATES
Overview - Vivien Burr
Realism, Relativism, Social Constructionism and Discourse
Fragments in the Realization of Relativism - Jonathan Potter
Language, Practice and Realism - Andrew Collier
What Is To Be Done? (With Apologies to Lenin!) - Ruth Merttens
As One in a Web? Discourse, Materiality and the Place of Ethics - Steven D Brown and Joan Pujol with Beryl C Curt
Social Constructionism and Revolutionary Socialism - Carla Willig
A Contradiction in Terms?
PART TWO: COMMENTARIES
Across the S-S Divide - Don Foster
The Perverse and Pervasive Character of Reality - Maritza Montero
Some Comments on the Effects of Monism and Dualism
Psychology's Subject - Bronwyn Davies
A Commentary on the Relativism/Realism Debate
Constructionism and Realism - Kenneth J Gergen
How Are We To Go On?
