constructivisms

Noun

constructivism (countable and uncountable, plural constructivisms)

1. 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
2. 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. 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. 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...2000, Donald Kiraly, A Social Constructivist Approach to Translator Education, St. Jerome Publishing, p. 18
5. (international relations) A school of studying international relations that prioritises the way the behaviour of polities and agents in geopolitics is constructed by norms and identities.