C. a) World views and culture                                       

World view

The term worldview is used to refer to the common concept of reality shared by a particular group of people, usually referred to as a culture, or an ethnic group. Worldview is an individual as well as a group phenomenon.

Each of us has our own worldview, our mental representation of the world as we see it.

Our worldview is a schema by which we make sense of the world. Our worldview explains and gives meaning to:

• our lives
• events which happen to us
• events which we see happening in the world.

Our worldview is of central importance to:

• our sense of ourselves
• our well-being
• our ability to function effectively in the world.

But our worldview is not just a mental representation, it is an important determinant of our behaviour in the external world.

However, even though it is so fundamentally important, many people find it hard to identify what their worldview actually consists of. Our worldviews are largely subconscious and invisible to ourselves most of the time. This is partly because our individual worldviews are largely shared with others of our own culture, whose worldviews are likely to be similar in many important respects to our own. Describing exactly what our worldview consists of can be extremely difficult.

Culture

All of us are cultural beings. All of us have culture. Our culture shapes how we see the world and make sense of it. Culture influences all of our behaviours and interactions.

Culture is acquired - we learn about culture from others in our community, including our parents

Culture is shared - culture does not exist in a vacuum, it is shared amongst a group of people

Culture defines core values - because we have been taught our culture and share it with our cultural group, we tend to form the same core values

Cultures resist change but are not static - culture does and can change, but change is usually slow and gradual.

Culture is more than cuisine, dress, dance and artistic expression. Fundamentally, culture is much more profound than these external expressions. Culture is integral to one's basic sense of oneself. 'Broadly speaking, culture includes common values, beliefs and norms within groups who share an ethnic heritage, sexual orientation or socioeconomic class' (Sonn & Fisher, 2005, p. 351). In this definition, culture resides within the minds of the people who belong to a cultural group. However, like worldviews, culture is not just a mental representation. Cultural values, beliefs and norms are commonly expressed as outward behaviours of both the individuals belonging to the group and the group as a whole.

To take a simple and trivial example, the barbecue is often regarded as an essential part of the 'Australian' culture-witness the advertisements for lamb in butcher shops in the lead-up to Australia Day. A barbecue is an expression of the 'Australian' values of informality and love of being outdoors. Norms of barbecue behaviour include the men donning aprons and doing the cooking and drinking beer around the 'barbie' while the women make the salads and gossip in the kitchen inside. Less trivial examples of cultural behaviours include the rite of circumcision for Jewish baby boys, women wearing veils in many Muslim societies, and having twenty-first birthday parties to celebrate entry into adulthood in Western culture.

Culture and World view

Culture is said to consist of knowing the rules for living and everyday behaviour (Sonn & Fisher, 2005), and most of our everyday behaviours are expressions of the norms, values and beliefs of our cultural group. There is a close relationship between culture and worldview. Culture is the medium through which worldviews have their outward expression. Worldviews provide the cognitive or intellectual basis for cultural values, beliefs and norms, which then provide the rules for living and hence outward behaviour.