Understanding Unemployment: Social Construction vs. Imagination

This essay explores the concepts of social construction and sociological imagination and applies them to the understanding of unemployment as a social problem in Australia. It discusses how social construction theory explains unemployment as an unwillingness to work, while social imagination views it as a societal failure to provide adequate opportunities. The essay contrasts these perspectives, highlighting the prevalence of social constructionist views in Australia, where unemployment is often attributed to individual laziness rather than systemic issues. It further examines the influence of factors like migration and historical policies on unemployment rates, concluding that a balanced approach considering both individual and societal factors is necessary to address the problem effectively. The document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide range of academic resources for students.

Running head: UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY
UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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A society is constructed through the active involvement of its citizens. The relationship
between an individual and the society is mutual where society influences the way individual’s
life is shaped and individual’s actions shape the way society is viewed. However, societal beliefs
exert stronger influence on the individual and the community.
In this essay, two key aspects of the society and their influence on the individual shall be
thoroughly discussed. The discussion will focused on the two aspects specifically from the
perspective of unemployment situation in Australia. The essay will first provide a detailed
description of the two aspects of societal beliefs that include social construction and social
imagination. Then, it will delve upon the issue of unemployment in Australia and attempt to find
the possible reasons using relevant theories. This will be followed by the use of social theories to
explain the problem of unemployment in Australia further.
According to the theory of social construction, human beings associate their experiences
by developing model of the social world. They share this model with their peer communities in a
well-constructed manner by communicating through messages and languages (Holmes et al.
2014). To put it simply, social constructions are common suppositions developed by the society
and may differ as per the contexts of culture (Whitty 2017).
The first use of the term social construction was found in Berger and Luckman’s work
titled Social Construction of Reality published in 1966 (Best 2017). However, the origin of the
concept is credited to theorists like Piaget and Vygotsky. According to Piaget, social
construction occurs through active alteration to reality in which beginners construct knowledge
by making and examining their own theories of world. Light (2017) while supporting his view
states that Piaget’s approach gave rise to the contemporary theories of cognitive development

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that contributed largely towards social construction. The author remarks, “The no-man’s land
between cognitive development and social psychology has recently been transformed into a very
busy place”. He further adds, “Much of the contemporary research identified by social cognition
is concerned with the interpretation of social behavior in cognitive terms”. In contrast to this
view, Lourenço (2016) argues that with the development of science, explaining social
construction in cognitive terms have become vague. According to the author, the developmental
stages proposed by Piaget although useful to chart developmental change, must be based on
strong conceptions.
Vygotsky is credited with the development of social constructivism, as he was the one
who completely rejected Piaget’s assumptions that upheld the possibility of separating learning
from social context (Amineh and Asl 2015). Vygotsky propagated that social construction help
understand the cultural development of human beings. In his view, cultural development occurs
twice in a person’s life, once at the individual level and next at the social level. Marginson and
Dang (2017) stated that Vygotsky’s theory helped develop the contemporary theories that define
social construction. The authors argue that the concepts of Vygotsky have helped understand the
social psychology of people.
Social imagination, on the other hand, links the life of an individual with the history of
the society. Social imagination helps individuals realize the connection between larger society
and personal experiences by developing a deeply rooted comprehension in the individual. The
American sociologist C Wright Mills first introduced the concept in 1959 in his book The
Sociological Imagination (Laliberte Rudman 2014). As per the views of Mills, sociological
imagination refers to the realization of the link between “personal experience and the wider
society”. Many experts claim that social imagination in the contemporary world assists in

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understanding some complex issues concerning today’s society. The author raises the issue of
same-sex marriage in the U.S. and interprets it in terms of “changing social imagination”. The
social imagination thus provides a solid ground for both researchers and students to comprehend
some of the complex issues of the modern society by linking the social behavior to the constructs
of the wider society.
Unemployment is a social menace that hampers the progress of any society.
Unemployment arises out of several reasons, most glaring of which include lack of education
and poverty. All these reasons are interlinked as unemployment leads to poverty and increased
poverty leads to lack of education, which then escalates the problem of unemployment.
However, the concept of unemployment could be more clearly understood with the use of the
two theories of social construction and social imagination. The social construction theory
explains unemployment as the unwillingness in people to work. As Smyth (2016) puts it,
unemployment provides a good excuse to lazy people to avoid working. This theory however,
does not attempt to investigate deeper into the causes of unemployment. The proponents of this
theory overlook many reasons like satisfaction at job, less payment and so on. The theory relates
the grave issue of unemployment with a petty reason like personal weakness.
Many theorists have heavily criticized social constructionists’ perspective of
unemployment in the past and in the present. However, it is important to note that this view of
unemployment is still relevant in countries like France where laziness is always attributed to lack
of employment opportunities. In Japan as well as in Brazil too, the social constructionist view of
unemployment prevails.

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In contrast to this theory, social imagination views the problem of unemployment not
something due to individual weakness but due to social problem. As per this theory,
unemployment arises when the society fails to safeguard the interest provide adequate
opportunities to its people. In a nation with close to 30% population facing the crisis of
unemployment, it is evident that the problem lies more within the societal structure rather the
within the individual (Mavromaras et al. 2015).
In Australia, the trend depicts that the society is more inclined towards following the
social constructionist theory. Here, most people associate unemployment with an individual’s
laziness rather than the social problems. Nonetheless, many people on the other hand consider
lack of sufficient opportunities to individuals as per qualifications as the root cause of
unemployment. Many Australian youths do not succeed in finding a job in spite of the fact that
they possess adequate qualification to be employed (Golebiowska et al. 2016). This has resulted
in the higher rate of emigration where Australian youth leave their homeland to find suitable jobs
in other advanced nations. It is thus the need of the hour that the government both at state and
federal level invest a fair amount of their time and money to find concrete solutions to the
problem.
Some scholars have analyzed the causes of unemployment in the country during the early
years of 1960s and 70s. The author states that the causes of unemployment resulted from the
level of unemployment benefit payments and the conditions imposed on income earned by
unemployment benefit recipients. On the other hand, some attribute lower wages, negligence of
under privileged minority community including the indigenous community in Australia as the
prime causes of unemployment. These views incline towards the fact that unemployment is not

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due to the weakness of the individual as social constructionism believes but it is the result of
larger problems prevalent in the society.
Practical instances could be used to present a better picture of the situation where the
collective view of the Australians regarding the problem could be explained. In regards to this,
Australia is viewed as a nation that is market oriented and liberal, a welfare state that regards
unemployment and receipt of social security as a social stigma (Livingstone 2018). In the past,
Australian policies on unemployment and the unemployed population has largely focused on
encouraging unemployed people to seek jobs. The social security policy according to which, the
unemployed were entitled to receive payments was also limited to those who demonstrated
consistency in their efforts to search for jobs. Despite the cut in payments for the unemployed,
there has been gradual decline in the rate of employment in the last 40 years in the country.
According to leading English daily, there has been a 13.5% rise in the rate of joblessness and
18% rise in underemployment in Australia over the last four decades (Theguardian.com 2018).
The reason for this remarkable downfall in the employment rate is largely attributed to the rapid
increase in migration over the past few decades. This further evidences the influence of social
constructionist view.
To conclude it can be stated that social construction and social imagination are two
effective and important theories that clearly explain the problem of unemployment.
Unemployment is a social evil that arises due to the lack in certain benefits to the individuals.
The assignment focuses on these two theories to explain unemployment in Australia. Primarily,
the assignment compares and contrasts the two theories and beliefs regarding the Australian
unemployment problem. It could be analyzed from the study that the Australian society
emphasizes social construction theory and associates unemployment with personal weakness and

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failure rather than limitations within the society and the government. In addition, it has also been
found from the analysis that apart from attributing personal weakness to unemployment, the
Australian society provides excuses like increase in migration as a major cause of
unemployment.

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References:
Amineh, R.J. and Asl, H.D., 2015. Review of constructivism and social constructivism. Journal
of Social Sciences, Literature and Languages, 1(1), pp.9-16.
Best, J., 2017. Typification and social problems construction. In Images of issues (pp. 3-10).
Routledge.
Carvalho, P., 2015. Youth unemployment in Australia. Policy: A Journal of Public Policy and
Ideas, 31(4), p.36.
Golebiowska, K., Elnasri, A. and Withers, G., 2016. Responding to Negative Public Attitudes
towards Immigration through Analysis and Policy: regional and unemployment
dimensions. Australian Geographer, 47(4), pp.435-453.
Holmes, D., Hughes, K. and Julian, R., 2014. Australian sociology. Pearson Australia.
Laliberte Rudman, D., 2014. Embracing and enacting an ‘occupational imagination’:
Occupational science as transformative. Journal of Occupational Science, 21(4), pp.373-388.
Light, P., 2017. Social interaction and cognitive development: a review of post-Piagetian
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Lourenço, O.M., 2016. Developmental stages, Piagetian stages in particular: A critical
review. New Ideas in Psychology, 40, pp.123-137.

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Marginson, S. and Dang, T.K.A., 2017. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory in the context of
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Theguardian.com (2018). Third of Australian youth have no job or are underemployed, report
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are-underemployed-report-finds [Accessed 28 Apr. 2018].
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Abingdon: Routledge, pp.305-412.