| |
| | ALLELON - Articles: Viewing Article |
 | | The contemporary idea of social construction builds in part from the thesis presented by Peter Berger in the mid-1960s that rather than inhabiting a prefabricated, given world, humans live in a social-cultural world of their own creation, [1] a task to which society supplies the necessary cultural tools. |
 | | Although the constructed world gives the semblance of being a given, universal and objective reality, it is actuallyâ“to use Morganâs pictureâ“âan unstable edifice that generations constantly labor to build, raze, rebuild, and redesign.â [9] |
 | | At the heart of this ongoing, dynamic process are what sociologists call âsymbolsâ that transmit the shared meanings by means of which a people understand themselves, pinpoint their deepest aspirations and longings, and construct the world they inhabit. |
| www.allelon.org /articles/article.cfm?id=34 (549 words) |
|