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58-398: It can be considered as a social construct which divides the actors and their stage-world from the audience which has come to witness it. But since the curtain usually comes down just behind the proscenium arch, it has a physical reality when the curtain is down, hiding the stage from view. The same plane also includes the drop, in traditional theatres of modern times, from the stage level to

116-635: A causal factor in human behavior, excluding the influence of innate biological tendencies. This criticism has been explored by psychologists such as Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate as well as by Asian studies scholar Edward Slingerland in What Science Offers the Humanities . John Tooby and Leda Cosmides used the term standard social science model to refer to social theories that they believe fail to take into account

174-412: A good view because the performers need only focus on one direction rather than continually moving around the stage to give a good view from all sides. A proscenium theatre layout also simplifies the hiding and obscuring of objects from the audience's view (sets, performers not currently performing, and theatre technology). Anything that is not meant to be seen is simply placed outside the "window" created by

232-435: A group, social constructivism focuses on an individual's learning that takes place because of his or her interactions in a group. Social constructivism has been studied by many educational psychologists, who are concerned with its implications for teaching and learning. For more on the psychological dimensions of social constructivism, see the work of Lev Vygotsky , Ernst von Glasersfeld and A. Sullivan Palincsar. Some of

290-512: A linguistic viewpoint, social constructionism centres meaning as an internal reference within language (words refer to words, definitions to other definitions) rather than to an external reality. In the 16th century, Michel de Montaigne wrote that, "We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things." In 1886 or 1887, Friedrich Nietzsche put it similarly: "Facts do not exist, only interpretations." In his 1922 book Public Opinion , Walter Lippmann said, "The real environment

348-473: A picture frame than an arch but serving the same purpose: to deineate the stage and separate the audience from its action. While the proscenium arch became an important feature of the traditional European theatre, often becoming very large and elaborate, the original proscaenium front below the stage became plainer. The introduction of an orchestra pit for musicians during the Baroque era further devalued

406-519: A proscenium arch, but the term thrust stage is more specific and more widely used). In dance history , the use of the proscenium arch has affected dance in different ways. Prior to the use of proscenium stages, early court ballets took place in large chambers where the audience members sat around and above the dance space. The performers, often led by the queen or king, focused in symmetrical figures and patterns of symbolic meaning. Ballet's choreographic patterns were being born. In addition, since dancing

464-409: A social constructionism lens, there is evidence to support that criminal acts are a social construct where abnormal or deviant acts become a crime based on the views of society. Another explanation of crime as it relates to social constructionism are individual identity constructs that result in deviant behavior. If someone has constructed the identity of a "madman" or "criminal" for themselves based on

522-473: A society's definition, it may force them to follow that label , resulting in criminal behavior. Constructionism became prominent in the U.S. with Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann 's 1966 book, The Social Construction of Reality . Berger and Luckmann argue that all knowledge, including the most basic, taken-for-granted common-sense knowledge of everyday reality, is derived from and maintained by social interactions . In their model, people interact on

580-435: Is a diverse field with varying stances on these matters. Some social constructionists do acknowledge the existence of an objective reality but argue that human understanding and interpretation of that reality are socially constructed. Others might contend that while the term average may not exist in all languages, equivalent or analogous concepts might still be applied within those cultures, thereby not completely invalidating

638-534: Is a term used in sociology , social ontology , and communication theory . The term can serve somewhat different functions in each field; however, the foundation of this theoretical framework suggests various facets of social reality —such as concepts , beliefs , norms , and values —are formed through continuous interactions and negotiations among society's members, rather than empirical observation of physical reality . The theory of social constructionism posits that much of what individuals perceive as 'reality'

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696-768: Is actually the outcome of a dynamic process of construction influenced by social conventions and structures . Unlike phenomena that are innately determined or biologically predetermined, these social constructs are collectively formulated, sustained, and shaped by the social contexts in which they exist. These constructs significantly impact both the behavior and perceptions of individuals, often being internalized based on cultural narratives , whether or not these are empirically verifiable. In this two-way process of reality construction, individuals not only interpret and assimilate information through their social relations but also contribute to shaping existing societal narratives. Examples of social constructs range widely, encompassing

754-490: Is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance" between people and their environment. Each person constructs a pseudo-environment that is a subjective, biased, and necessarily abridged mental image of the world, and to a degree, everyone's pseudo-environment is a fiction. People "live in the same world, but they think and feel in different ones." Lippman's "environment" might be called "reality", and his "pseudo-environment" seems equivalent to what today

812-405: Is called "constructed reality". Social constructionism has more recently been rooted in " symbolic interactionism " and " phenomenology ". With Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality published in 1966, this concept found its hold. More than four decades later, much theory and research pledged itself to the basic tenet that people "make their social and cultural worlds at

870-407: Is hard to see how we might coherently follow this advice. Given that the propositions which make up epistemic systems are just very general propositions about what absolutely justifies what, it makes no sense to insist that we abandon making absolute particular judgements about what justifies what while allowing us to accept absolute general judgements about what justifies what. But in effect this

928-465: Is no English equivalent ... It would also be possible to retain the classical frons scaenae . The Italian "arco scenico" has been translated as "proscenium arch." In practice, however, the stage in the Teatro Olimpico runs from one edge of the seating area to the other, and only a very limited framing effect is created by the coffered ceiling over the stage and by the partition walls at

986-432: Is not some objective truth "waiting to be uncovered through positivist scientific inquiry." Rather, there can be "multiple realities that compete for truth and legitimacy." Social constructionism understands the "fundamental role of language and communication" and this understanding has "contributed to the linguistic turn " and more recently the "turn to discourse theory". The majority of social constructionists abide by

1044-399: Is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the first example of a proscenium theatre. The Teatro Olimpico was an academic reconstruction of a Roman theatre. It has a plain proscaenium at the front of the stage, dropping to the orchestra level, now usually containing "stalls" seating, but no proscenium arch. However, the Teatro Olimpico's exact replication of the open and accessible Roman stage

1102-516: Is what the epistemic relativist is recommending. Woolgar and Pawluch argue that constructionists tend to "ontologically gerrymander " social conditions in and out of their analysis. Alan Sokal also criticizes social constructionism for contradicting itself on the knowability of the existence of societies. The argument is that if there was no knowable objective reality, there would be no way of knowing whether or not societies exist and if so, what their rules and other characteristics are. One example of

1160-712: The Greek chorus and musicians remained in the "orchestra" in front and below it, and there were often further areas for performing from above and behind the proskenion, on and behind the skene . Skene is the Greek word (meaning "tent") for the tent, and later building, at the back of the stage from which actors entered, and which often supported painted scenery. In the Hellenistic period it became an increasingly large and elaborate stone structure, often with three storeys. In Greek theatre, which unlike Roman included painted scenery,

1218-465: The identity of social citizens. In the book The Reality of Social Construction , the British sociologist Dave Elder-Vass places the development of social constructionism as one outcome of the legacy of postmodernism. He writes "Perhaps the most widespread and influential product of this process [coming to terms with the legacy of postmodernism] is social constructionism, which has been booming [within

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1276-466: The proscaenium , bringing the lowest level of the audience's view forward to the front of the pit, where a barrier, typically in wood, screened the pit. What the Romans would have called the proscaenium is, in modern theatres with orchestra pits, normally painted black in order that it does not draw attention. In this early modern recreation of a Roman theatre, confusion seems to have been introduced to

1334-465: The social construction of technology , or SCOT, and authors as Wiebe Bijker , Trevor Pinch , Maarten van Wesel, etc. Despite its common perception as objective, mathematics is not immune to social constructionist accounts. Sociologists such as Sal Restivo and Randall Collins , mathematicians including Reuben Hersh and Philip J. Davis , and philosophers including Paul Ernest have published social constructionist treatments of mathematics. Within

1392-506: The "stalls" level of the audience, which was the original meaning of the proscaenium in Roman theatres , where this mini-facade was given more architectural emphasis than is the case in modern theatres. A proscenium stage is structurally different from a thrust stage or an arena stage , as explained below. In later Hellenistic Greek theatres the proskenion (προσκήνιον) was a rather narrow raised stage where solo actors performed, while

1450-430: The 1950s, personal construct psychology (PCP) has mainly developed as a constructivist theory of personality and a system of transforming individual meaning-making processes, largely in therapeutic contexts. It was based around the notion of persons as scientists who form and test theories about their worlds. Therefore, it represented one of the first attempts to appreciate the constructive nature of experience and

1508-474: The PCP "toolkit" in constructionist therapy and research. On the other hand, the reframing contributes to PCP theory and points to new ways of addressing social construction in therapeutic conversations. Like social constructionism, social constructivism states that people work together to construct artifacts . While social constructionism focuses on the artifacts that are created through the social interactions of

1566-512: The Teatro Olimpico clearly show that the action took place in front of the scaenae frons and that the actors were rarely framed by the central archway). The Italian word for a scaenae frons is " proscenio ," a major change from Latin. One modern translator explains the wording problem that arises here: "[In this translation from Italian,] we retain the Italian proscenio in the text; it cannot be rendered proscenium for obvious reasons; and there

1624-733: The assigned value of money , conceptions of concept of self /self-identity, beauty standards , gender , language , race , ethnicity , social class , social hierarchy , nationality , religion , social norms , the modern calendar and other units of time, marriage , education , citizenship , stereotypes , femininity and masculinity , social institutions , and even the idea of 'social construct' itself. These constructs are not universal truths but are flexible entities that can vary dramatically across different cultures and societies. They arise from collaborative consensus and are shaped and maintained through collective human interactions, cultural practices, and shared beliefs. This articulates

1682-435: The beginning of dance-performance as a form of entertainment like we know it today. Since the use of the proscenium stages, dances have developed and evolved into more complex figures, patterns, and movements. At this point, it was not only significantly important how the performers arrived to a certain shape on the stage during a performance, but also how graciously they executed their task. Additionally, these stages allowed for

1740-424: The belief that "language does not mirror reality; rather, it constitutes [creates] it." A broad definition of social constructionism has its supporters and critics in the organizational sciences. A constructionist approach to various organizational and managerial phenomena appear to be more commonplace and on the rise. Andy Lock and Tom Strong trace some of the fundamental tenets of social constructionism back to

1798-416: The characters performing on stage are doing so in a four-walled environment, with the "wall" facing the audience being invisible. Many modern theatres attempt to do away with the fourth wall concept and so are instead designed with a thrust stage that projects out of the proscenium arch and "reaches" into the audience (technically, this can still be referred to as a proscenium theatre because it still contains

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1856-401: The children as externally produced "givens" that they cannot change. Berger and Luckmann's social constructionism has its roots in phenomenology . It links to Heidegger and Edmund Husserl through the teaching of Alfred Schutz , who was also Berger's PhD adviser. During the 1970s and 1980s, social constructionist theory underwent a transformation as constructionist sociologists engaged with

1914-425: The contradiction is that the claim that "phenomena must be measured by what is considered average in their respective cultures, not by an objective standard." Since there are languages that have no word for average and therefore the whole application of the concept of "average" to such cultures contradict social constructionism's own claim that cultures can only be measured by their own standards. Social constructionism

1972-401: The corners of the stage where the seating area abuts the floorboards. The result is that in this theatre "the architectural spaces for the audience and the action ... are distinct in treatment yet united by their juxtaposition; no proscenium arch separates them." A proscenium arch creates a "window" around the scenery and performers. The advantages are that it gives everyone in the audience

2030-666: The domain of social theory] since the 1980s." Critics argue that social constructionism rejects the influences of biology on behaviour and culture, or suggests that they are unimportant to achieve an understanding of human behaviour . Scientific estimates of nature versus nurture and gene–environment interactions have shown almost always substantial influences of both genetics and social, often in an inseparable manner. Claims that genetics does not affect humans are seen as outdated by most contemporary scholars of human development. Social constructionism has also been criticized for having an overly narrow focus on society and culture as

2088-401: The evolved properties of the brain. In 1996, to illustrate what he believed to be the intellectual weaknesses of social constructionism and postmodernism, physics professor Alan Sokal submitted an article to the academic journal Social Text deliberately written to be incomprehensible but including phrases and jargon typical of the articles published by the journal. The submission , which

2146-496: The meaning persons give to their experience. Social constructionism (SC), on the other hand, mainly developed as a form of a critique, aimed to transform the oppressing effects of the social meaning-making processes. Over the years, it has grown into a cluster of different approaches, with no single SC position. However, different approaches under the generic term of SC are loosely linked by some shared assumptions about language, knowledge, and reality. A usual way of thinking about

2204-613: The media framing the poor more negatively since 1960, with more usage of words such as lazy and fraud . Potter and Kappeler (1996) , in their introduction to Constructing Crime: Perspective on Making News And Social Problems wrote, "Public opinion and crime facts demonstrate no congruence. The reality of crime in the United States has been subverted to a constructed reality as ephemeral as swamp gas." Criminology has long focussed on why and how society defines criminal behavior and crime in general. While looking at crime through

2262-518: The modern sense, and the acting space was always fully in the view of the audience. However, Roman theatres were similar to modern proscenium theatres in the sense that the entire audience had a restricted range of views on the stage—all of which were from the front, rather than the sides or back. The oldest surviving indoor theatre of the modern era, the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza (1585),

2320-483: The most important issues in contemporary psychology are elaborated in these contributions, the polarized positioning also sustained the idea of a separation between PCP and SC, paving the way for only limited opportunities for dialogue between them. Reframing the relationship between PCP and SC may be of use in both the PCP and the SC communities. On one hand, it extends and enriches SC theory and points to benefits of applying

2378-470: The object or event. The social construction of target populations refers to the cultural characterizations or popular images of the persons or groups whose behavior and well-being are affected by public policy. Social constructionism posits that the meanings of phenomena do not have an independent foundation outside the mental and linguistic representation that people develop about them throughout their history, and which becomes their shared reality . From

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2436-484: The processes of social construction. Their goal was to show that human subjectivity imposes itself on the facts taken as objective, not solely the other way around. A particularly provocative title in this line of thought is Andrew Pickering 's Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics . At the same time, social constructionism shaped studies of technology – the Sofield, especially on

2494-414: The proscenium arch, either in the wings or in the flyspace above the stage. The phrase "breaking the proscenium" or "breaking the fourth wall" refers to when a performer addresses the audience directly as part of the dramatic production. Proscenium theatres have fallen out of favor in some theatre circles because they perpetuate the fourth wall concept. The staging in proscenium theatres often implies that

2552-400: The proskenion might also carry scenery. In ancient Rome, the stage area in front of the scaenae frons (equivalent to the Greek skene) was known as the pulpitum , and the vertical front dropping from the stage to the orchestra floor, often in stone and decorated, as the proscaenium , again meaning "in front of the skene ". In the Greek and Roman theatre, no proscenium arch existed, in

2610-523: The relationship between PCP and SC is treating them as two separate entities that are similar in some aspects, but also very different in others. This way of conceptualizing this relationship is a logical result of the circumstantial differences of their emergence. In subsequent analyses these differences between PCP and SC were framed around several points of tension, formulated as binary oppositions: personal/social; individualist/relational; agency/structure; constructivist/constructionist. Although some of

2668-544: The same time these worlds make them." It is a viewpoint that uproots social processes "simultaneously playful and serious, by which reality is both revealed and concealed, created and destroyed by our activities." It provides a substitute to the "Western intellectual tradition" where the researcher "earnestly seeks certainty in a representation of reality by means of propositions ." In social constructionist terms, "taken-for-granted realities" are cultivated from "interactions between and among social agents"; furthermore, reality

2726-663: The social constructionist strand of postmodernism , the concept of socially constructed reality stresses the ongoing mass-building of worldviews by individuals in dialectical interaction with society at a time. The numerous realities so formed comprise, according to this view, the imagined worlds of human social existence and activity. These worldviews are gradually crystallized by habit into institutions propped up by language conventions; given ongoing legitimacy by mythology , religion and philosophy; maintained by therapies and socialization ; and subjectively internalized by upbringing and education. Together, these become part of

2784-581: The systemic models that use social constructionism include narrative therapy and solution-focused therapy . Max Rose and Frank R. Baumgartner (2013), in Framing the Poor: Media Coverage and U.S. Poverty Policy, 1960-2008 , examine how media has framed the poor in the U.S. and how negative framing has caused a shift in government spending. Since 1960, the government has decreasingly spent money on social services such as welfare. Evidence shows

2842-525: The understanding that their perceptions of everyday life are shared with others, and this common knowledge of reality is in turn reinforced by these interactions. Since this common-sense knowledge is negotiated by people, human typifications , significations and institutions come to be presented as part of an objective reality, particularly for future generations who were not involved in the original process of negotiation. For example, as parents negotiate rules for their children to follow, those rules confront

2900-507: The use of stage effects generated by ingenious machinery. It was the beginning of scenography design, and perhaps also it was also the origin of the use of backstage personnel or "stage hands". Social constructionism 1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville  ·  Marx ·  Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto ·  Tönnies · Veblen ·  Simmel · Durkheim ·  Addams ·  Mead · Weber ·  Du Bois ·  Mannheim · Elias Social constructionism

2958-542: The use of the revived term in Italian. This emulation of the Roman model extended to refer to the stage area as the "proscenium", and some writers have incorrectly referred to the theatre's scaenae frons as a proscenium, and have even suggested that the central archway in the middle of the scaenae frons was the inspiration for the later development of the full-size proscenium arch. There is no evidence at all for this assumption (indeed, contemporary illustrations of performances at

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3016-406: The view that people in society construct ideas or concepts that may not exist without the existence of people or language to validate those concepts, meaning without a society these constructs would cease to exist. A social construct or construction is the meaning, notion, or connotation placed on an object or event by a society, and adopted by that society with respect to how they view or deal with

3074-425: The way that they are only because of human social conventions, as opposed to being so naturally, then it should be possible to change them into how people would rather have them be. He then states that social constructionists argue that people should refrain from making absolute judgements about what is true and instead state that something is true in the light of this or that theory. Countering this, he states: But it

3132-492: The work of Michel Foucault and others as a narrative turn in the social sciences was worked out in practice. This particularly affected the emergent sociology of science and the growing field of science and technology studies . In particular, Karin Knorr-Cetina , Bruno Latour , Barry Barnes , Steve Woolgar , and others used social constructionism to relate what science has typically characterized as objective facts to

3190-972: The work of the 18th-century Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist Giambattista Vico . Berger and Luckmann give credit to Max Scheler as a large influence as he created the idea of sociology of knowledge which influenced social construction theory. According to Lock and Strong, other influential thinkers whose work has affected the development of social constructionism are: Edmund Husserl , Alfred Schutz , Maurice Merleau-Ponty , Martin Heidegger , Hans-Georg Gadamer , Paul Ricoeur , Jürgen Habermas , Emmanuel Levinas , Mikhail Bakhtin , Valentin Volosinov , Lev Vygotsky , George Herbert Mead , Ludwig Wittgenstein , Gregory Bateson , Harold Garfinkel , Erving Goffman , Anthony Giddens , Michel Foucault , Ken Gergen , Mary Gergen , Rom Harre , and John Shotter . Since its appearance in

3248-399: Was considered a way of socializing, most of the court ballets finished with a ‘grand ballet’ followed by a ball in which the members of the audience joined the performance. Later on, the use of the proscenium stage for performances established a separation of the audience from the performers. Therefore, more devotion was placed on the performers, and in what was occurring in the ‘show.’ It was

3306-565: Was published, was an experiment to see if the journal would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions." In 1999, Sokal, with coauthor Jean Bricmont published the book Fashionable Nonsense , which criticized postmodernism and social constructionism. Philosopher Paul Boghossian has also written against social constructionism. He follows Ian Hacking 's argument that many adopt social constructionism because of its potentially liberating stance: if things are

3364-597: Was the exception rather than the rule in sixteenth-century theatre design. Engravings suggest that the proscenium arch was already in use as early as 1560 at a production in Siena . The earliest true proscenium arch to survive in a permanent theatre is the Teatro Farnese in Parma (1618), many earlier such theatres having been lost. Parma has a clearly defined " boccascena ", or scene mouth, as Italians call it, more like

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