A Critical Reflection on Social Construction Drawing from an Analysis of the Life-World of Economically Disadvantaged Teenagers

Abstract

Concepts of system, structure, process, inter-subjectivity, and temporality are often used to help clarify the ways by which people relate to their environments and build knowledge. This phenomenological study examined the sense of belonging within a specific teenage culture as lived and described by economically disadvantaged teenagers. Six essential constituents were uncovered relating to in-group/out-group dynamics, social identity formation, and the effects of neighborhood structural limitations on the transfer of knowledge between groups. Drawing from certain ideas in phenomenological theory regarding the centrality of what is represented by the concept life-world, the results of this study were discussed in relation to certain social constructionist renderings of culture and society. It is suggested herein that a general understanding of the role of the life-world from the perspective of participants within any qualitative psychological research study is a necessary starting point in order to avoid unwarranted theoretical speculation, but especially so in research pertaining to relations between members of a particular in-group.

Keywords:

• in-group/out-group dynamics
• life-world
• phenomenology
• social construction
• systems theory
• teenage cultures

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Timothy J. Beck

Timothy J. Beck is currently pursuing a PhD in psychology at the University of West Georgia. His primary research interests reside at the intersection of continental philosophy and psychological theory, especially as it might pertain to the function of discourse in perpetuating and/or dismantling oppressive modes of relating to others. Included in this is an interest in promoting and employing approaches to qualitative research in psychology that are sensitive to the types of issues involved in such dynamics.