Operationalization of a Social Construction Theory

In 1993, Profs. Helen Ingram and Anne Schneider introduced the concepts and lexicon of Social Construction (SC) to the developing world of public policy theory (Ingram and Schneider, APSR, 1993), followed up in 1997 by their book elaborating on the democratic foundations of the SC policy framework (Ingram and Schneider, University of Kansas Press1997). In 2007, the same two authors published a collection of case examples of SC prepared by a distinguished group of policy scholars (Schneider and Ingram, eds., SUNY Press). Subsequent reviews (Pierce et al., 2014; also see Ingram, Schneider, and deLeon, 2007 and 2014) indicate a widespread recognition of the place of SC in the contemporary policy literature. However, there are numerous refinements to the SC policy framework that would be useful for its continued development as an operational theory. For instance, what are the acceptable mechanisms by which a target population’s social construction may change? Do target populations have agency or influence or such changes in their social construction? Or what is the relation between a social culture and SC? This presentation will offer a number of questions and proposed avenues designed to improve the scope and relevance of the SC approach to policy process research.