Deviance, Constructionist Perspectives

Constructionist perspectives are ways of viewing reality as a human cognitive or social production. The extent to which reality is seen as having an independent existence outside the human mind or social processes distinguishes different versions of constructionist theory, as does whether the construction occurs individually or socially. Individual or personal constructionism refers to how humans make cognitive meaning of their experiences of their environment. Social constructionism is about how people interactively make sense of their world by defining it and categorizing it, by representing it through language, symbols, maps, etc., and by acting toward the representations as though they were real.