The Social Construction of Reality - canonical work of integrative sociological theories. Contexts, analysis, perspectives

The paper deals with one of the classics of sociological theory The Social Construction of Reality written by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, published in the mid-sixties of the 20th century. It was a key contributions to the sociology of knowledge as well as sociological theory in general. The article outlines the fundamental ideas presented in the book, situated within related dichotomies such as essentialism versus constructivism, structure versus agency. We included a few examples of the application of their theory that was widely accepted within the academic community, even though their ideas, as pointed out by Berger and Luckmann, were often misinterpreted compared to the authorial intention. Regardless of that fact, the social constructivist theory rapidly expanded after the publication of the book, and we specify a few developments in the end of the article.