Social Consturction OF reality Arvin Gitman

Social Construction of Reality

This week in my sociology class, we learned about the social construction of reality. Social construction of reality can mean a lot of things; social construction of reality means that society, everything around us, and the people that are part of your life, all of that influences your life. An example of how we, as individuals, are influenced by everything around us was our 'spit example in class'. Our teacher had told a girl to spit into a spoon. After she had done this he instructed her to put the spit back into her mouth, but she wouldn't do it. The question we ask is WHY? We have learned as a society that this wouldn't be normal to put spit back into your mouth. Even though it is the same saliva that is in our mouth, we still wouldn't want to put it back in. Throughout our lives, society has taught us social norms and things that are accepted in reality. Spitting has always had the connotation as something 'rude' or disrespectful'. This isn't the only social construction of reality that effects our lives. I've been 'taught' or known all my life what is considered normal or non normal. In the show Freaks and Geeks that we watched in class, you see how the social construction of reality for the 'smart girl' is to be smart and stay around with those kids, but she breaks this social construction of reality by hanging around with the 'bad kids'.  When she does this everybody freaks because she's breaking her 'social construction of reality'.        file://localhost/Users/agitman3/Desktop/3070100107001.png