3. Scientific Positioning: Theoretical Perspective and Methodological Framework
3.1. Social Constructionism
Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (2000) characterised all research as
interpretive as it is guided by a set of beliefs about the world and how it should be studied.
The researcher’s ontological and epistemological point of departure forms the basis for the scientific positioning of the study. My ontological and epistemological set of beliefs situates my study within social constructionism, a theoretical perspective by which I will explain further in the following paragraph, and thus, position my role as a researcher.
The social constructionism explores the negotiations and constructions of ‘reality’ that goes on in everyday life through people’s interactions with each other and through various sets of discourses (James & James, 2008, p. 122; Schwandt, 2000). Within these constructions of ‘reality’, there is a historical and sociocultural dimension as the constructions do not
happen in isolation but take place in the context of language, practices, and shared
understandings (Schwandt, 2000, p. 197). Peter R. Berger and Thomas Luckman (1966, pp.
15, 27) introduced the term ‘social constructionism’ and stated that people’s social
construction of their reality concerned their knowledge of their own ‘reality’ in their everyday lives – but shared with others as members and participants in a society. The reality of a
person’s everyday life would present itself as an intersubjective world in which the shared knowledge constituted a reality that would be taken for granted as ‘the reality’ by the members of the society (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 37).
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Thomas A. Schwandt (2000) distinguished between weak/moderate and strong social constructionism. Outlining the difference between those two forms, Schwandt described that a moderate (weak) version of social constructionism would reject definitions of true knowledge of ‘reality’ but, nevertheless, distinguish between ‘better’ or ‘worse’ interpretations of a subject matter. A strong social constructionism, on the other hand, would take on a more radical point of view, rejecting any norms of interpretation, implying that any interpretation of
‘reality’ is as good as the next (Schwandt, 2000, p. 198). I understand such strong social constructionism in the context of universal constructionism as described and criticised by Ian Hacking (1999), namely, the notion that everything is socially constructed. However, I do not apply such a notion of a ‘social constructionism of everything’ (Hacking, 1999, p. 24), but rather, I apply a moderate social constructionism15 as outlined in the following paragraph.
I assume a premise that knowledge and meaning making are constructed through social processes and interaction, rather than through individual cognitive processes. I take a point of departure that there exists a multitude of perceived ‘realities’ and that the ‘reality’ by which one assumes to be ‘the reality’ is based on social constructions of reality within cultural and historical contexts. Nonetheless, I strongly believe in the existence of indisputable
realities, such as the existence of physical realities including stars and planets, atmospheres and climate, weather conditions and oceans, mountains and trees, buildings, artefacts, humans, birds and animals, etc. These realities exist independently of one’s own meaning making or interpretation thereof.
Drawing on Vivien Burr’s (2015) key assumptions on what may characterise social constructionism in research, I will outline my position as a researcher in the following paragraph. I support a notion that knowledge, meaning, and experience are created and sustained in and through social, cultural, and historical processes and practices within the society. In addition to supporting the notion of knowledge as socially created and sustained through people’s everyday interactions, I concur with the view that ‘reality’ is not universal or objective, but rather, that our knowledge of the world is culturally and historically specific, and thus, culturally and historically relative. Burr (2015) stated language as a pre-condition for thought by which people’s social and psychological worlds are constructed. People who share a historic period, a culture, and a language create concepts and categories that provide a
15 In the further text, I will use the term ‘social constructionism’ within the meaning of ‘moderate social constructionism’.
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framework of meaning for them. Thus, language is created on the basis of people’s perceptions of ‘reality’, and, at the same time, language has a constitutive function on this perception (Burr, 2015, pp. 4–5, 10). I find this meaningful in the context of studying children in their everyday lives in early childhood, during a historic period in their lives, and within the specific culture and context that exists within the frames of their everyday institutional lives in kindergarten.
As one of the first ‘social constructionists’ in psychology (Newman & Holzman, 1997, p. 25), the Soviet scientist Lev Vygotskij built a new methodology for the study of childhood, and he was one of the first to emphasise the importance of social situations in children’s development. Vygotskij understood children’s development as a process of interaction that takes place between the child and the culture in which the child lives (Veraksa & Sheridan, 2018), a process that, according to Vygotskij (1978), proceeds in a spiral that repeatedly advances to a higher level by passing through the same point (Vygotskij 1978, pp. 56–57).
When explaining the child’s internalisation of higher psychological functions, Vygotskij stated that this consisted of a series of transformations where interpersonal processes were transformed into intrapersonal processes, first on the social level between the child and his or her social and cultural environment, and later on the individual level within the child (1978, p.
57). Further, Vygotskij (1978 p. 57) stated that this internalisation of socially rooted and historically developed activities was a distinguishing feature of the human psychology. To connect social and cultural practices with human knowledge and development and show that human cognition is social by nature and develops through social interaction, was one of Vygotskij’s major principles (Säljö & Veraksa, 2018).
Vygotskij’s theory of the cultural-historical development of higher mental functions and of consciousness has been one of his major contributions for the understanding of children’s learning and development. His principles that the individual child’s higher mental processes originate from the social processes by which the child participates and that these mental processes can be understood through the tools and signs that mediate them, form the core of his theoretical framework (Wertsch, 1988). By positioning my study within social constructionism, I apply a premise that children’s meaning making of belonging is not to be found in the child’s mind but in the processes that happen between children and between children and their environments – the culture, artefacts, practices, and language by which they live their everyday lives (Säljö & Veraksa, 2018).
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