758 Social Construction of Reality
See also Family and Delinquency; Social Disorganization of everyday life inspired sociologists Peter Berger
Theory and Thomas Luckmann to write an essay on the
role of knowledge in society, titled The Social
Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology
Further Readings
of Knowledge, originally published in 1966. The
Jennings, J. (Ed.). (2007). Race, neighborhoods, and the Social Construction of Reality is essentially a criti-
misuse of social capital. New York: Palgrave cal assessment of the fragmented state of structural
Macmillan. theories of sociology (particularly the structural-
Messner, S. F., Baumer, E. P., & Rosenfeld, R. (2004). functionalism of Émile Durkheim and the conflict
Dimensions of social capital and rates of criminal theories of Weber) and Freudian psychoanalysis,
homicide. American Sociological Review, 69, 882–903. approaches that were in vogue at the time. Berger
Portes, A. (1998). Social capital: Its origins and and Luckmann saw a connection between these
applications in modern sociology. Annual Review of
three seemingly disparate approaches and envi-
Sociology, 24, 1–24.
sioned the sociology of knowledge as a method for
Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining
a comprehensive understanding of the interactions
social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 65–78.
between the individual person and society. Their
ideas have since given rise to the study of how
knowledge systems are produced, organized, stored,
Social Construction and distributed within society. How people think
and behave is a function of the knowledge systems
of Reality they have access to. Hence, the realities of a Latino
gang member, a biology professor, or an Islamic
The social construction of reality is a sociological jihadist vary in content, quality, and texture.
premise that individuals’ reality is “invented” as a Basically, our everyday reality has a complexion
product of the objective “real” world they experi- made up of three domains: objective reality, sub-
ence; the subjective meanings they bring to, and jective reality, and intersubjective reality. Objective
draw from, these experiences; and the intersubjec- reality is the real world independent of our
tive agreements produced in interactions with other thoughts, wishes, and beliefs. Subjective reality is
individual actors in which they construct an agreed- the world as we perceive it through our thoughts,
upon perception of reality. This entry outlines the emotions, and beliefs. Intersubjective reality is the
intellectual foundations of social constructionism. perceived world we invent in communication with
It also provides an illustration of how the philoso- other individuals as we construct ad hoc, agreed-
phy can be applied to race and crime. upon views of the world.
These domains constantly intersect but are
rarely congruent. Most often they collide like cars
Intellectual Foundations
in a demolition derby. This “collision of multiple
of Social Constructionism
realities” has been a subject of interest among phi-
Ideas about a socially constructed reality were losophers, especially phenomenologists, social sci-
introduced by the early phenomenologist philoso- entists interested in the sociology of knowledge,
phers Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler. In their and clinical practitioners, in particular cognitive-
efforts to understand the structures of conscious- behavioral therapists.
ness, they observed that the mind can be directed Beginning in the Renaissance, scholars began to
at real things (e.g., the dog barking in your back- reexamine the cultures of antiquity and discovered
yard), as well as nonexistent things (e.g., your that the ancients’ view of reality differed from their
anxieties related to dogs barking in your back- own. This awareness of a world of multiple reali-
yard). The term was actually coined by Alfred ties was reinforced during the Age of Exploration
Schutz, who sought to employ a phenomenological as Europeans came into contact with foreign cul-
approach to more fully explain Max Weber’s soci- tures with radically different world views.
ology of social action. Schutz’s ideas about how With the emergence of sociology in the 19th
ordinary people structure the commonsense world century, the notion that consciousness is embedded
Social Control Theory —759
within social structure became a major theme in crimes. Even in the aftermath of slavery, racism
understanding social behavior. To this extent, the remained embedded in our cultural psyche and
sociology of knowledge has been an important continued to serve to control and victimize minor-
tool in the development of sociological theory. ities. Because socially constructed reality serves the
function of keeping reality intact, racism has also
been useful in convincing some minorities that
Application of Social
they are less worthy of equality and social justice,
Constructionism to Race and Crime
thus maintaining the existing power structure.
To illustrate the relationship among social con-
structionism, race, and crime in the United States, John Lemmon
consider the following question: What came first,
slavery or racism? According to the social con- See also Conflict Theory; Minority Group Threat; White
structionist argument, it was slavery. Businessmen Crime
along with other financial speculators in Europe
and North America came up with a plan for eco-
nomic development in the colonies. This was sim- Further Readings
ply a fiscal enterprise aimed at accruing a profit Beck, J. S. (1995). Cognitive therapy: Basics and beyond.
for themselves and their investors. Their aims New York: Guilford Press.
were nothing out of the ordinary, maybe a bigger Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social
home, some financial security, possibly a chance construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of
of advancing up the social ladder—nothing one knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor
wouldn’t want for oneself or one’s families. Books.
Unfortunately, their plan involved the conspiracy Holzner, B., & Marx, J. H. (1979). Knowledge
to commit the premeditated crimes of kidnapping, application: The knowledge system in society. Boston:
unlawful restraint, assault, and even murder when Allyn & Bacon.
African victims attempted to protect themselves, Schutz, A. (1967). The phenomenology of the social
their families, and their freedom. It also involved the world. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
sexual abuse of many of those victims while they Wagner, H. R. (Ed.). (1970). Alfred Schutz on
were held in captivity. These are some of the most phenomenology and social relations. Chicago:
feared and heinous crimes that can be perpetrated University of Chicago Press.
on a human being: stranger-on-stranger abduction,
forced servitude for life, assault, rape, and murder.
Crimes like these are committed by hardened crimi-
nal and psychopaths, not businessmen. The con- Social Control Theory
spirators were faced with a moral dilemma. To
maintain this enterprise, the participants and those Race (i.e., the major biological divisions of human-
who benefited from it were forced to construct an kind that are indicated by color of skin, color
ideology, White Supremacy, to assuage their con- and texture of hair, bodily proportions, and other
sciences. So, along with fellow conspirators, they physical features) and ethnicity (i.e., differences
constructed a reality (e.g., viewing slaves as chattel/ among people that are based on cultural customs
property) in which they convinced themselves that [e.g., language, religion, food, family patterns,
they were not perpetrating crimes against other and other characteristics]) are important contribu-
human beings at all. As this fiscal enterprise grew tors to criminal behavior, especially in the United
and became part of the economic and social fabric States. A substantial amount of attention is given
of American society, it became a national agenda to to this issue, particularly from the media and aca-
maintain this constructed view of reality. demia. This entry provides an overview of the role
From the social constructionist perspective, of race/ethnicity in criminal behavior and the use
objective reality provides the real account. Slavery of social control theory to explain this role.
was a composite of serious crimes, and racism pro- Empirical literature in this area is reviewed, and
vided the rationalization needed to commit those future research directions are provided.
