Social constructivism is related to Interpretationism. However, instead of just assuming that human or states' action can only be understood if the world according to those whom we want to understand can be reconstructed, social constructivists say that interpretations do not just make action understandable, but they constitute social realities. Thus, social constructivism, at its core, is a belief according to which social realities are constructed in social interaction. They exist only because the actors in the society believe they are real. Social constructs could be normative ( moral rules, traffic rules, norms, etc. ) or constitutive states, ethnic groups, action categories, such as revenge, acts of aggression, or outcomes of interaction, such as capitulation, a goal in football or mediation. Even though social realities did not exist if people or states or other actors did not imagine them, this does not make these realities less real. They can have very material consequences ( imagine being labeled a terrorist, it would have terrible consequences ), and they might be related to material realities: a member of an ethnic group could claim that her skin color is objective and material as a reality, but the groupness of people with certain material characteristics is created in the imagination of people. Thus, left-handed people are not a group in conflicts, and yet there is material similarity in people who are left-handed. Social constructs could result in practices, linguistic forms, or institutions that make them look more material & natural, they can cause material changes. Read more»