Embracing Change: Knowledge, Continuity, and Social Representations

Description

This book uses a social representations perspective to understand the relationship between social change and continuity, with a particular focus on the production of shared knowledge and the role of the 'other.' By first bringing the primacy of relationships and communication to the forefront of the knowing process, and by taking social and cultural forces into account, this book examines growing streams of research on this theoretical and methodological approach. Via contributions from leading experts in their fields, this book applies this framework to a wide range of pressing topics in our daily lives, including healthcare, environmental challenges, aging, and intercultural encounters. Over the course of the book, patterns and trends emerge to advance our knowledge of how change has been studied in social psychology, how common knowledge is organized in everyday life, and how scholars can study and contribute to knowledge patterns as the world evolves. This book is a valuable tool for students and scholars interested in social change and continuity in social and cultural psychology, sociology, political science, healthcare, and related fields. Cover Half-Title Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Contributors PART I: ENTERING THE FIELD Introduction: Why a Social Representations Perspective? “Le Regard Psychosocial” for the Study of Change and Continuity in the Field of Social Psychology 1. Change Seen Through the Lens of Social Psychology in Europe and the United States: Close and Distant Reading of Reference Books and Papers Published in Two Key Journals PART II: THE PRIMACY OF RELATIONSHIPS 2. Stability and Change in Everyday Knowledge: From Taken for Granted to Social Representation: The Case of Normality 3. Social Representations in the Classroom: The Experience of Social Inequalities in Teacher–.Student Relations PART III: THE PRIMACY OF COMMUNICATION 4. Social Representations, Communication, and the Evolution of Cultures 5. The Contribution of Social Representations Theory for a Social Psychology of Communication Laboratory PART IV: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY AS ONGOING ENTERPRISES 6. Battles of Ideas Between the Legal and the Legitimate: Studying Change and Continuity in Sustainability and Ecological Issues 7. Research of the Health, Aging, and Society Laboratory: Changes and Continuities of Social Representations in Health and Labor Contexts PART V: DIALOGUES WITH COGNATE PERSPECTIVES 8. Social Constructionism and Social Representation Theory: Convergences and Divergences in the Study of Change 9. The Discursive Format of “Social Warming”: How People Change Their Self-.Representation in the Context of a “Mixed Family” Epilogue Index