Constructivism

Question 1

Key question / focus

Answer 1

How are facts made in practice?

Question 2

How “truth” / scientific knowledge is framed

Answer 2

Scientific knowing as “situated material-semiotic practices”; facts as socio-technical achievements; warns against simplistic “just constructed” views

Question 3

Key principle(s) / mechanism

Answer 3

Focus on practices, technologies, interests, discourse; socio-technical achievement (robust fit of world–theory–apparatus)

Question 4

Opposing thinking (typical critique from others)

Answer 4

Critique from rationalists: risks sliding into relativism; from institutional/normative views: underplays formal norms and the aspiration to objectivity

Question 5

How it explains “not sitting down in a waiting room”

Answer 5

You don’t sit because the “waiting room order” is performed/produced in practice: chairs, spacing, signage, phone-use, hygiene routines, and mutual monitoring enact what “waiting properly” is. Your body becomes part of that ordering

Question 6

Example scenario

Answer 6

Chairs are arranged in a way that makes sitting feel like “claiming territory.” People stand with coats/bags marking boundaries. The room’s material setup + people’s micro-actions produce the norm that standing is safer/politer

Question 7

Named anchors in slides

Answer 7

Constructivist figures shown (Knorr, Collins, Latour, Traweek) and broader STS sensibility (course materials)