Читать книгу The Sage Handbook of Social Constructionist Practice - Группа авторов - Страница 159

Differences between social work and social construction are most pronounced in their respective positions on research. For social work, conventional research (e.g., experiments, surveys, statistical analyses) is seen as most authoritative. Critiques of such research are largely internal, focused on methodology, methods, and analysis as opposed to the assumptions or claims of the research itself. Social work's historical legacy has shaped its relatively conservative position concerning research, for instance, regarding research findings as establishing truth or in the case of practice, effectiveness.

In contrast to the above, social construction takes issue with the authoritative claims of conventional research and encourages equal status for alternative forms of inquiry. Additionally, social constructionists are more likely to focus on how what we take as truth functions in terms of its implications for social life. Research generated truths receive their authority through social processes rather than their veridicality about reality (McNamee and Hosking, 2012).