758 Social Construction of Reality
See also Family and Delinquency; Social Disorganization
Theory
Further Readings
Jennings, J. (Ed.). (2007). Race, neighborhoods, and the
misuse of social capital. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Messner, S. F., Baumer, E. P., & Rosenfeld, R. (2004).
Dimensions of social capital and rates of criminal
homicide. American Sociological Review, 69, 882–903.
Portes, A. (1998). Social capital: Its origins and
applications in modern sociology. Annual Review of
Sociology, 24, 1–24.
Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining
social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 65–78.
Social Construction
of Reality
The social construction of reality is a sociological
premise that individuals’ reality is “invented” as a
product of the objective “real” world they experi-
ence; the subjective meanings they bring to, and
draw from, these experiences; and the intersubjec-
tive agreements produced in interactions with other
individual actors in which they construct an agreed-
upon perception of reality. This entry outlines the
intellectual foundations of social constructionism.
It also provides an illustration of how the philoso-
phy can be applied to race and crime.
Intellectual Foundations
of Social Constructionism
Ideas about a socially constructed reality were
introduced by the early phenomenologist philoso-
phers Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler. In their
efforts to understand the structures of conscious-
ness, they observed that the mind can be directed
at real things (e.g., the dog barking in your back-
yard), as well as nonexistent things (e.g., your
anxieties related to dogs barking in your back-
yard). The term was actually coined by Alfred
Schutz, who sought to employ a phenomenological
approach to more fully explain Max Weber’s soci-
ology of social action. Schutz’s ideas about how
ordinary people structure the commonsense world
of everyday life inspired sociologists Peter Berger
and Thomas Luckmann to write an essay on the
role of knowledge in society, titled The Social
Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology
of Knowledge, originally published in 1966. The
Social Construction of Reality is essentially a criti-
cal assessment of the fragmented state of structural
theories of sociology (particularly the structural-
functionalism of Émile Durkheim and the conflict
theories of Weber) and Freudian ­psychoanalysis,
approaches that were in vogue at the time. Berger
and Luckmann saw a connection between these
three seemingly disparate approaches and envi-
sioned the sociology of knowledge as a method for
a comprehensive understanding of the interactions
between the individual person and society. Their
ideas have since given rise to the study of how
knowledge systems are produced, organized, stored,
and distributed within society. How people think
and behave is a function of the knowledge systems
they have access to. Hence, the realities of a Latino
gang member, a biology professor, or an Islamic
jihadist vary in content, quality, and texture.
Basically, our everyday reality has a complexion
made up of three domains: objective reality, sub-
jective reality, and intersubjective reality. Objective
reality is the real world independent of our
thoughts, wishes, and beliefs. Subjective reality is
the world as we perceive it through our thoughts,
emotions, and beliefs. Intersubjective reality is the
perceived world we invent in communication with
other individuals as we construct ad hoc, agreed-
upon views of the world.
These domains constantly intersect but are
rarely congruent. Most often they collide like cars
in a demolition derby. This “collision of multiple
realities” has been a subject of interest among phi-
losophers, especially phenomenologists, social sci-
entists interested in the sociology of knowledge,
and clinical practitioners, in particular cognitive-
behavioral therapists.
Beginning in the Renaissance, scholars began to
reexamine the cultures of antiquity and discovered
that the ancients’ view of reality differed from their
own. This awareness of a world of multiple reali-
ties was reinforced during the Age of Exploration
as Europeans came into contact with foreign cul-
tures with radically different world views.
With the emergence of sociology in the 19th
century, the notion that consciousness is embedded

within social structure became a major theme in
understanding social behavior. To this extent, the
sociology of knowledge has been an important
tool in the development of sociological theory.
Application of Social
Constructionism to Race and Crime
To illustrate the relationship among social con-
structionism, race, and crime in the United States,
consider the following question: What came first,
slavery or racism? According to the social con-
structionist argument, it was slavery. Businessmen
along with other financial speculators in Europe
and North America came up with a plan for eco-
nomic development in the colonies. This was sim-
ply a fiscal enterprise aimed at accruing a profit
for themselves and their investors. Their aims
were nothing out of the ordinary, maybe a bigger
home, some financial security, possibly a chance
of advancing up the social ladder—nothing one
wouldn’t want for oneself or one’s families.
Unfortunately, their plan involved the conspiracy
to commit the premeditated crimes of kidnapping,
unlawful restraint, assault, and even murder when
African victims attempted to protect themselves,
their families, and their freedom. It also involved the
sexual abuse of many of those victims while they
were held in captivity. These are some of the most
feared and heinous crimes that can be perpetrated
on a human being: stranger-on-stranger abduction,
forced servitude for life, assault, rape, and murder.
Crimes like these are committed by hardened crimi-
nal and psychopaths, not businessmen. The con-
spirators were faced with a moral dilemma. To
maintain this enterprise, the participants and those
who benefited from it were forced to construct an
ideology, White Supremacy, to assuage their con-
sciences. So, along with fellow conspirators, they
constructed a reality (e.g., viewing slaves as chattel/
property) in which they convinced themselves that
they were not perpetrating crimes against other
human beings at all. As this fiscal enterprise grew
and became part of the economic and social fabric
of American society, it became a national agenda to
maintain this constructed view of reality.
From the social constructionist perspective,
objective reality provides the real account. Slavery
was a composite of serious crimes, and racism pro-
vided the rationalization needed to commit those
Social Control Theory —759
crimes. Even in the aftermath of slavery, racism
remained embedded in our cultural psyche and
continued to serve to control and victimize minor-
ities. Because socially constructed reality serves the
function of keeping reality intact, racism has also
been useful in convincing some minorities that
they are less worthy of equality and social justice,
thus maintaining the existing power structure.
John Lemmon
See also Conflict Theory; Minority Group Threat; White
Crime
Further Readings
Beck, J. S. (1995). Cognitive therapy: Basics and beyond.
New York: Guilford Press.
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social
construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of
knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor
Books.
Holzner, B., & Marx, J. H. (1979). Knowledge
application: The knowledge system in society. Boston:
Allyn & Bacon.
Schutz, A. (1967). The phenomenology of the social
world. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Wagner, H. R. (Ed.). (1970). Alfred Schutz on
phenomenology and social relations. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Social Control Theory
Race (i.e., the major biological divisions of human-
kind that are indicated by color of skin, color
and texture of hair, bodily proportions, and other
physical features) and ethnicity (i.e., differences
among people that are based on cultural customs
[e.g., language, religion, food, family patterns,
and other characteristics]) are important contribu-
tors to criminal behavior, especially in the United
States. A substantial amount of attention is given
to this issue, particularly from the media and aca-
demia. This entry provides an overview of the role
of race/ethnicity in criminal behavior and the use
of social control theory to explain this role.
Empirical literature in this area is reviewed, and
future research directions are provided.