Comparing Relativism And Luckmann's The Social Construction Of

Social construction theories are developed to make sense of constructed concepts and ideas within the world and whether the reality we live in is shaped by anything other than what we know of. There are three main terms within social construction perspectives which are as follows: relativism, subjectivism and voluntarism. Relativism demonstrates that things are what they are labelled as, for example an act is good only because people label it as good. subjectivism is the idea that people consciously think and feel, they are not objects. Finally, voluntarism is the action of will or free choice.
Vivien Burr (1996) identifies social constructionist theories as "the basis upon which moral and political choices are made". For Burr (1996) social constructionist theories have a number of different perspectives which have underlying aspects of 'agency' and 'reality'. In brief 'agency' refers to the extent that individuals are able to independently make their own choices and 'reality' demonstrates how our experiences and social interactions with people shape our gender, sexuality and ultimately who we are.

Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966) in their book 'The Social Construction of Reality' argue that reality is "socially constructed and that sociology of knowledge must analyze the processes in which this occurs." Therefore this would mean that the reality we live in relies upon the knowledge we individually possess. They also argued that our society is shaped by human interaction and called this 'habitualization' which they defined as “any action that is repeated frequently becomes cast into a pattern, which can then be performed again in the future in the same manner and with the same economical effort” (Berger and Luckmann 1966). Therefore, by 'habit' the society we live in is accepted by us as it has been previously constructed and lived by