Compare and contrast the social construction of science and the social construction of technology. Be sure to include social facts and interpretive flexibility in your response.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

When scholars focus on science as a social institution they focus primarily on the biographies, methods, and experiments of scientists. Biographies of scientists tell us about their social networks, education, and experiences. In turn, this information can be utilized to explain and describe the development of scientific knowledge. According to Durkheim, social facts are the ways of thinking, acting, and feeling that are external to and exert pressure on the individual. This allows us to understand science as a social institution and describe its beliefs, tendencies, and practices. In contrast, new technologies often create new social problems. For example, 1898 a woman bicyclist was refused service in an English pub because she was wearing baggy trousers when the norm at the time was for women to wear long skirts. That norm made it difficult for women to ride bikes until bicycle styles and fashion styles began to change. As such, interpretive flexibility is the ability of the development path to respond to different users' needs. For example, by studying the ways different user groups define and label an emerging social problem connected to a new technology, the social construction of technology highlights the way technological change responds to cultural influences and the way a technology develops into a working artifact.