The Winchester Guide to Keywords and Concepts for International Students in Art, Media and Design

PART B THINKING ABOUT WORLD-VIEWS

In one way or another, we all bring some kind of order to the mass of information floating around in our heads. We use histories or narratives to understand our lives. In particular, we try to make sense of the past – that of our own personal life and also that of the culture in which we live. The two are not separate because who we think we are is largely conditioned by the culture in which we find ourselves. It isn’t easy to decide how much derives from our own inherent character (from ‘nature’) and how much is inherited from our conditioning, through the influence of family, friends, social groups, cultural norms, traditions and so on (from ‘nurture’).

As individuals we adopt ‘world-views’. A world-view is the larger point of view we have, and from which we interpret the world. It is a collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by us and the groups to which we belong. World-views are usually limited to readily identifiable historical, geographical, ethnic and other groupings. However, we need to think about the world-view you will bring from your country of origin and how it relates to the ones you will inevitably encounter in your new cultural context.

The pressure on the individual to conform to a world-view is called ‘socialisation’ or ‘social conditioning’. The collective name for such influences is ‘ideology’. Another word with ...