Dr. Gergen is Professor Emerita at Penn State University, Brandywine, in the Philadelphia area. She has taught courses in many subfields in psychology and in Women′s Studies. Her major academic focus has been on social constructionist theory and feminism. Currently she is an officer in the Taos Institute, a non-profit educational organization. She also advises Ph.D. students in applied social science fields. Her work has taken her to many countries around the glove, most recently Nanjing, China. Recent collaborators include Kenneth J. Gergen and Ellen Cole.

Kenneth J. Gergen is a Senior Research Professor in Psychology at Swarthmore College, and the President of the Taos Institute. He is internationally known for his contributions to social constructionist theory, technology and cultural change, the self, aging, education, and relational theory and practices. His major writings include, Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, and Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. His most recent work Beyond the Tyranny of Testing: Relational Evaluation in Education (with Scherto Gill) offers a relational constructionist alternative to the destructive practices of testing and grading in education. Gergen lectures throughout the world, and has received numerous awards for his work, including honorary degrees in both the U.S. and Europe.

PART ONE: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE REAL AND THE GOOD
Introduction
On Scientific Paradigms - Thomas S Kuhn
Socially Negotiating Knowledge - Harold Garfinkel
Knowledge As Socially Constructed - Kenneth J Gergen
Knowledge As a Language Game - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Economics As Rhetoric - Diedre N McCloskey
Knowledge As a Numbers Game - Gudmund R Iversen
The Egg and the Sperm - Emily Martin
Knowledge As Ideology
PART TWO: CONSTRUCTING THE PERSON: CULTURE AND CRITIQUE
Introduction
Emotion - Catherine A Lutz
The Universal As Local
The Meanings of Pain - David Morris
Power and Confession - Michel Foucault
Learning to Labour - Paul Willis
PART THREE: HORIZONS OF INQUIRY
Introduction
Life Stories - Mary Gergen
Pieces of a Dream
The Secret Life in a Culture of Thinness - Lisa M Tillmann-Healy
Troubling the Angels - Patti Lather and Chris Smithies
Silent Voices - Karen V Fox
A Subversive Reading of Child Sexual Abuse
Together Against the Computer - Gustavo I de Roux
Glimpses of Street Children through Short Stories - Marcelo Diversi
PART FOUR: THE RELATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF
Introduction
Possessive Individualism and the Self-Contained Ideal - Edward E Sampson
Identity, Deconstruction and Politics - Judith Butler
The Social Construction of Remembering and Forgetting - John Shotter
The Relational Reconstruction of Repression - Michael Billig
The Social Construction of Emotion - Rom Harr[ac]e
Meaning in Relationship - Kenneth J Gergen
PART FIVE: PROFUSIONS OF PRACTICE
Introduction
Narrative Therapy and Externalizing the Problem - Michael White
Culture of Education - Jerome Bruner
Appreciative Inquiry - David L Cooperrider and Diana Whitney
From Stuck Debate to New Conversation - Carol Becker et al
PART SIX: READING CULTURE
Introduction
The World of Wrestling - Roland Barthes
The Lone Ranger, Barbar and Other Innocent Heroes - Ariel Dorfman
Style in Revolt - Dick Hebdige
Revolting Style
Post-Colonial Feminism and the Veil - Lama Abu Odeh
Thinking the Difference
PART SEVEN: CONSTRUCTIONISM IN QUESTION
Introduction
Death and Furniture - Derek Edwards, Malcolm Ashmore and Jonathan Potter
Arguments against Relativism
Relativism and Feminist Psychology - Alexa Hepburn
Sexual Orientation - Janis S Bohan and Glenda M Russell
Essential and Constructed