A critical and thematic survey of the diverse traditions and recent developments within contemporary social constructionism.

Andy Lock is Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand.

1. Introduction; 2. Giambattista Vico; 3. Phenomenology; 4. Hermeneutics; 5. Marxism and language; 6. Lev Vygotsky; 7. Meanings and perspectives: George Herbert Mead and Jakob von Uexküll; 8. Ludwig Wittgenstein: 'shewing the fly out of the bottle'; 9. Gregory Bateson: a cybernetic view of communication and human interaction; 10. Sociologies - micro and macro: Garfinkel, Goffman and Giddens; 11. Sources of the self; 12. Michel Foucault and his challenges; 13. Discourse analysis; 14. Ken and Mary Gergen; 15. Rom Harre; 16. John Shotter; 17. Concluding remarks.