World view can be defined as many things and used in many different ways. Without knowing, our world view will shape how we live our lives, how we interact with people and how we learn. In our childhood we are taught the right ways of behaving in certain situations and so too in our development in our own set of principles to live by. Things we are taught from childhood can become set principles we live by in later life or can influence the decisions we make to give us our ‘world view’ aswe can not find other examples due to age.
Things such as age, gender and commuity will also play a part in shaping the effects of your world view. A World view is described by many different people in various ways for example Samovar and Porter (2003) (citing Rapport and Overing 2000) will describe a world view as ‘the common English translation of the German word “Weltanschauung” meaning overarching philosophy or outlook, or conception of the world’ wheras Julia Hobson (lecture 1 A guide to learning at university 2010) “A world view is the large story that we share as a culture”.
Based on julia’s interpretation can it not be said that in this large shared story issues such as age, gender and community can effect the context in which your are living and that these issues can be seen as good or bad influences for many different people. I would define world view as based on attitudes and beliefs in regards to education and learning of the world, my world view influences my actions by taking into account how define my “self”. This is based on my experiences, values, beliefs and attitudes. This can also be seen through issues with age gender and community.
Some beliefs such as religion, supriority of the sexes and what you think is your social status. These issues may mean that you have a bias viewpoint if for example you believe that it is against your religion for genetic engineering to occur so you might taylor an essay on that particualar viewpoint while others mean that you have a broader understanding of social situations. When reading the concepts of self by Julia Hobson she mention that she contextualises herself as a lecturer at Murdoch University and that she is a mother two preschool aged twins.
It made me realise that I contextualise myself as a university student who works and has an active relationship. I realised that you contestualise your life everyday by what is in your life. It made me realise that I use social structures to plan out how I think my day or life will be. For me age, gender and the place that I am in life really did influence my studies and how I learnt. The place that I live has many different people at various stages of life and when I thought about this I realised although its not made up of many people its my community, my little group of different perspective.
Where I live is a hostel that is filled with some permanent residents, some travellers taking a break from travelling and some people just passing through. In its own right it can function as a community as there are many different perspectives given by people, it creates its own rules and social standards and and relies on the whole to realise its own issues and make decisions regarding them. For some people the decision to learn at university is based on maturity or age.
For example when I decided to study I am doing so at 22 rather than when I was 18 as I feel there is a certain maturity involved with the responsibility to study and at 18 I felt I hadnt obtained that yet. As everyone learns differently I think that it is important to note that not everyone would be able to cope with the pressure of study and it is a big decision to make. When you undertaking study there may be issues of gender that are stopping people from completing things as efficiently as they should. These issues may be bullying, sexual descrimination, commitments of children, marriages and partners and family problems.
For some people it is harder to learn whilst others will find it easier to juggle everything and study Also for some people they might find these troubles as a motivating forces to complete their studies. In today’s day and age it is even easier to be able to access methods to overcome problems such as consellors and talking with teachers. When you study it makes you see the qualities that you bring to your studies such as time management, the ability to read for long periods of time or experiences in past learning. When I decided to study it made me reaconsider my strengths and weaknesses of learning.
I realised that I read things for longer periods of time when they are on a piece of paper and that once I have written a point down in my own words it its easy for me to change it around to give my viewpoint without writing my life’s histoy in the process. For me finding this out was amazing as it give me motivation to be able to complet further work. Some things that I found out are also bad as I found out that sitting still for long periods starting at a computer screen depleted my energy and made it hard to sit still for long periods of time.
To conclude, I believe that a world view is made up of many different beliefs and attitudes and this may influence learning by giving you better a better experience. Issues like gender age and community I think strengthen your experience and learning. All of the issues discussed can challenge your interpretation of your world view and possibly strengthen your convictions attitudes and beliefs. References Samovar L. A and Porter R. E. , Communication between cultures (5th ed), Belmont, CA: wadsworth, 2004, p 85-86 Julia Hobson, Concepts of self: different ways of knowing about the self, 1996
