Dictionary

constructivism en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /kənˈstɹʌktɪvɪzm/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree English constructive Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der. English -ism English constructivism From constructive + -ism.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) A Russian movement in modern art characterized by the creation of nonrepresentational geometric objects using industrial materials.
   • Constructivism wasn't just Russian state propaganda - its blend of optimism and pragmatism and its emphasis on equality and the collective prefigured key developments in 20th-century art. 2009 February 10, “Rodchenko and Popova at Tate Modern”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • Art in the first half of the 20th century was powerfully shaped by Constructivism and Supremicism in the East and by Cubism, Futurism, and Surrealism in the West. 2009 March 19, William Haseltine, “George Costakis and the Survival of Russian Art”, in The Atlantic:
2. (countable, uncountable) A style of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s.
   • Many masterpieces of Soviet constructivism are now crumbling under capitalism, replaced by pastiche architecture or pale replicas of former buildings. 2015 May 5, Athlyn Cathcart-Keays, “Moscow's Narkomfin building: Soviet blueprint for collective living – a history of cities in 50 buildings, day 29”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
3. (countable, uncountable) A philosophy that asserts the need to construct a mathematical object to prove it exists.
   • At bottom, constructivism opposes axiomatization as the fundamental idea in mathematics. 1973, Nel Noddings, Constructivism as a Base for a Theory of Teaching, Stanford University, page 17:
4. (countable, uncountable) A psychological epistemology which argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from their experiences.
   • There is no single theory of constructivism. In fact, there are many shades and varieties of constructivism spanning a range of perspectives. There is also no single individual who can be identified as the founder of constructivism. In fact, rather than tracing a linear development along one line of philosophical thought, constructivism seems to circumscribe a set of thinkers, theories and approaches that spring from a plethora of historical and cultural origins. 2000, Donald Kiraly, A Social Constructivist Approach to Translator Education, St. Jerome Publishing, p. 18
   • Montessori subscribed to constructivism, a theory of education that says students do better if we let them piece together how the world works by moving through it themselves than if we deliver knowledge top-down. 2012 December 26, Emily Chertoff, “The Great Montessori Schism”, in The Atlantic:
   • According to constructivism, all systems are artificial abstractions. They are not made by nature and presented to use to be discovered, but we construct them by our perceptual and mental capabilities with the domain of our experiences. 2001, George J. Klir, Facets of Systems Science:
5. (countable, qualifier:international relations, uncountable) A school of studying international relations that prioritises the way the behaviour of polities and agents in geopolitics is constructed by norms and identities.

Forms

Deriveds

anticonstructivism · social constructivism · socioconstructivism

Relateds

constructionism · constructivist

Translations (26)

it costruttivismo (movement in modern art) · fi konstruktivismi (philosophy in mathematics) · pl konstruktywizm (movement in modern art) · kk конструктивизм (movement in modern art) · ro constructivism (movement in modern art) · el κονστρουκτιβισμός (movement in modern art) · pt construtivismo (movement in modern art) · kk сындарлылық (movement in modern art) · nl constructivisme (movement in modern art) · fr constructivisme (movement in modern art) · sh konstruktivizam (movement in modern art) · ja 構成主義 (movement in modern art) · sv konstruktivism (philosophy in mathematics) · ca constructivisme (movement in modern art) · ga tógachas (philosophy in mathematics) · cmn 構成主義 /构成主义 (movement in modern art) · sv konstruktivism (movement in modern art) · ko 구성주의 (movement in modern art) · de Konstruktivismus (movement in modern art) · uk конструктивізм (philosophy in mathematics) · ga tógachas (movement in modern art) · es constructivismo (movement in modern art) · cy adeiliaeth (philosophy in mathematics) · fi konstruktivismi (movement in modern art) · uk конструктивізм (movement in modern art) · sh konstruktivizam (philosophy in mathematics)