Mary Gergen

discussed in this book. It is clear that with an understanding of the main ideas of statistics, engaged citizens can grasp what the professional number crunchers have produced and evaluate the results. This book grew out of a course designed by Gudmund R. Iversen to meet the challenges created by this greater reliance on statistical It was one of a series of courses designed at Swarthmore information. College to fulfill the mission of a liberal arts college to educate its students for the challenges of the twenty-first century. The idea was that students should not become so involved with the intricacies of a single discipline that they lose sight of the big picture. These courses were intended to educate students to understand how the major ideas of a field relate to the world. In many respects statistics seemed an ideal subject for one such course. While statistics could be a mystifying, self­ aggrandized, and esoteric discipline, it could also be a key to under­ standing many other disciplines. The course, Stat 1: Statistical Think­ ing, was created to produce this understanding. The course proved to be very popular, and each year it grew in size. Over time the lecture notes for the course became more refined and extensive, and eventu­ ally the course material served as the basis for this book. Fonnulas As most statistics instructors are keenly aware, the teaching of statistics has changed dramatically.

En lettilgængelig introduktion til de socialkonstruktionistiske tanker præsenteret af to meget anerkendte tænkere og forskere inden for feltet. De fremlægger grundantagelserne og historien bag denne nyudvikling af socialpsykologien, hvor selvet og den sociale verden ses som et fænomen, der kommer til syne og opretholdes i vores sprog og relationer til hinanden.Bogen giver en grundlæggende indsigt i, hvordan den konstruktionistiske teori kan omsættes til handling i organisationer, psykoterapi, uddannelse, konfliktløsning, social forskning og i dagliglivet.

Feminist Reconstructions in Psychology introduces a distinctive new mode of doing psychology. This psychology is based on an increasingly popular range of ideas called social constructionism. Within the book, new forms of theory and methods of inquiry relating social constructionism to feminist topics are introduced. Each chapter highlights different topics of special concern within gender studies, especially the psychology of women. The first chapter outlines the purposes of the book and positions social constructionism in relation to the more traditional "feminist psychologies" empiricist and feminist standpoint. Given the trend toward social constructionism, [the author thinks] the broad audience of people doing gender work will be interested in becoming familiar with this approach to the field. The second and third chapters are focused on narrative methods as a means for studying gender differences in popular autobiographies. The discussions center on differences in stories of achievement, family, love, and embodiment. Quotations from well-known personalities, such as Donald Trump and Martina Navratilova, enrich the text. The fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters involve issues of menopause with a focus group methodology, a historical look at the "male gaze" as it is poised on the Naked Maja painting by Goya, and how relationships function within imaginal conversations. The two final chapters in the book are exemplars of a recent innovation in the field called performative psychology. One monologue is about aging in contemporary society and the other is a feminist critique of aspects of postmodernism itself. The book draws from the central tenets of postmodern inquiry, as played out in the positive framework of social constructionism. Emphasized are reflexivity, the social basis of reality making, the breakdown of traditional narrative forms, the loss of objectivity as a scientific standard, and the possibilities for new forms of doing research. In this respect, the book is unique and serves to provide a point of view on an intriguing movement that is gaining momentum across the social sciences and humanities. It is hoped that this book might serve as a catalyst for further innovative work in psychology. This text encourages such moves by its own irreverence for traditions and its overt efforts to break down resistances to creativity in the field.