The sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD) is a social science research programme for studying

discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. F ...

developed by Reiner Keller in order to analyze knowledge relationships and conditions in society. SKAD stems from the

sociology of knowledge The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought, the social context within which it arises, and the effects that prevailing ideas have on societies. It is not a specialized area of sociology. Instead, it deals w ...

Peter L. Berger Peter Ludwig Berger (17 March 1929 – 27 June 2017) was an Austrian-born American sociologist and Protestant theologian. Berger became known for his work in the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of religion, study of modernization, and contr ...

and

Thomas Luckmann Thomas Luckmann (; October 14, 1927 – May 10, 2016) was an American-Austrian sociologist of German and Slovene origin who taught mainly in Germany. Born in Jesenice, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Luckmann studied philosophy and linguistics at the ...

who in the 1960s studied the processes involved in the social construction of generally accessible everyday knowledge in their defining work, ''

The Social Construction of Reality ''The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge'' (1966), by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, proposes that social groups and individual persons who interact with each other, within a system of social classes, ...

''. Keller combines this approach with

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...

's discourse theory, which is responsible for the prominent role of discourse concepts in

social science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...

and inspired several approaches to

discourse analysis Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is an approach to the analysis of written, spoken, or sign language, including any significant semiotic event. The objects of discourse analysis (discourse, writing, conversation, communicative sy ...

in other scientific disciplines. As a comprehensive analytical perspective, SKAD has been applied in a number of empirical studies (on environmental conflicts, sex work, right wing populist discourses, medical discourses, education, migration policy,, not only within sociology but also in disciplines that extend beyond its borders (e.g.,

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

, education, Japanese studies,

criminology Criminology (from Latin , 'accusation', and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'', 'word, reason') is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behaviou ...

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, political science). SKAD is well established within German-speaking discourse studies, though interest has recently been increasing in the English-speaking world and beyond.For information on further SKAD related publications and upcoming events, se
discourse studies
cf. also an English introduction to SKAD by Prof. Keller at http://kellersskad.blogspot.de/

References

Discourse analysis Sociology of knowledge {{sociolinguistics-stub