Social constructionism is a theoretical framework that examines how individuals develop their knowledge and understanding of the world. It is a concept that exists not in objective reality, but as a result of human interaction. Social constructionism suggests that various facets of social reality, such as gender, race, class, ability, and sexuality, are products of human definition and interpretation shaped by cultural and historical contexts. In other words, social constructs are the meaning, notion, or connotation placed on an object or event by a society, and adopted by that society with respect to how they view or deal with the object or event. Social constructionism highlights the ways in which cultural categories are concepts created, changed, and reproduced through historical processes within institutions and culture.

The social constructionist perspective is concerned with the meaning created through defining and categorizing groups of people, experience, and reality in cultural contexts. Social constructionist analyses examine categories of difference as fluid, dynamic, and changing according to historical and geographical context, suggesting that existing inequalities are neither inevitable nor immutable. Social constructionist analyses challenge the categorical underpinnings of inequalities by revealing the historical, cultural, and/or institutional origins of the groups under study.