CURRENT ISSUES ON SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS
CURRENT ISSUES ON SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to briefly review the ways in which the concept of social representation has been approached, starting from the vast field of collective mentalities from which it originates and reaching the current meanings of the term. The premise from which our approach starts is that each social actor builds one’s own grid of reading reality, based on representations, but one is also subject, at the same time, to the common definitions of the members of the group to which one belongs. The methodology used consists of a structural analysis, followed by an interpretative approach of a symbolic interactionism type. The emphasis lays on revealing the structure and functions of representation, and the conclusions highlight the fact that social representation is a continuously evolving social construct which plays an important role in defining individual and group identity.

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