Self-paced online course: Co-Creating Futures – An Introduction to Social Construction, Taos Institute, Dallas, TX, USA. (no deadline, but available as of April 2025)
Provocative, unsettling, liberating, inspiring … all have been applied to the dialogues on the social construction of knowledge. The ideas have swept across the academic world and into personal and professional life. For many, they contain the ingredients for a promising life together on this planet.
In this new self-paced online course, Ken Gergen introduces the transformative ideas of social construction, challenging traditional notions of objectivity, truth, and knowledge. Emphasizing that our views of reality emerge through our relationships, the course explores the powers and limitations of language, the design of dialogues, and the transformation of conflict.
Through 6 modules, each featuring 3 short videos by Ken Gergen, you will explore and critique approaches that prioritize claims to truth, prediction and control. You will develop a curiosity and appreciation for multiple perspectives, stories, and values. Applications range from therapy, consulting, coaching, education, healthcare, research, governance, community development, to your personal life. In addition, you will learn how adopting a constructionist stance offers significant resources for transforming political, religious and organizational divides.
This self-paced course will challenge your current worldview, inspire innovation in your profession, and point to means of moving more harmoniously in every-day relationships.
The course is composed of 6 modules in 18 parts. Each part features a short video and lecture as well as questions for reflection. Topics include:
Module 1: Multiple Realities
Module 2: Facts & Values
Module 3: Language
Module 4: Making Knowledge
Module 5: Social Construction in Action
Module 6: Peace and Conflict
Sign up now to take part in a next live group meeting with Ken Gergen and Loek Schoenmakers on July 8, 2025, 10-11am EST! (Open to all registered participants.)
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 