Social Representations Explorations in Social Psychology

by Moscovici, Serge; Duveen, Gerard

• ISBN13: 9780745622262
• ISBN10: 0745622267
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-11-09
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

Serge Moscovici first introduced the concept of social representations into contemporary social psychology nearly forty years ago. Since then the theory has become one of the predominant approaches in social psychology, not only in continental Europe, but increasingly in the Anglo-Saxon world as well. While Moscovici's work has spread broadly across the discipline, notably through his contributions to the study of minority influences and of the psychology of crowds, the study of social representations has continued to provide the central focus for one of the most distinctive and original voices in social psychology today. This volume brings together some of Moscovici's classic statements of the theory of social representations, as well as elaborations of the distinctive features of this perspective in social psychology. In addition the book includes some recent essays in which he re-examines the intellectual history of social representations, exploring the diverse ways in which this theory has responded to a tradition of thought in the social sciences which encompasses not only the contributions of Durkheim and Piaget, but also those of Levy-Bruhl and Vygotsky. The final chapter of the book consists of a long interview with Ivana Markova, in which Moscovici not only reviews his own intellectual itinerary but also gives his views on some of the key questions facing social psychology today. The publication of this volume provides an essential source for the study of social representations and for an assessment of the work of a social psychologist who has consistently sought to re-establish the discipline as a vital element of the social sciences.

Author Biography

Edited By:


Serge Moscovici is Director of Studies at the +cole des Hautes +tudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris



Gerard Duveen is lecturer in Social Psychology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: the Power of Ideas Gerard Duveen

The Phenomenon of Social Representations

Society and Theory in Social Psychology

The History and Actuality of Social Representations

The Concept of Themata G. Vignaux

The Dreyfus Affair, Proust and Social Psychology

Social Consciousness and its History

Ideas and the Development: a Dialogue between Serge Moscovici Ivana Markova

References

Index

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