Social Work And Community Work Practice For People’s World Views Matter

The manifestation of world views

Discuss about the Social Work and Community Work Practice for People’s World Views Matter.
 

The world views get manifested within an individual's attitude, characteristics as well as actions. The worldviews are formed with the reflection that one achieved from various dimensions which include psychological, social, cultural and philosophical. Hence, it can be said as a particular concept of the world or the philosophy of life.

The essay aims to integrate the concept of the world view and how it is important to put into various forms for the phrases in life to understand the principle and even solve different sociological disorders.

As the discussion proceeds, it is important to explain the different forms of the world view and relate it to our everyday life with the motive to get into the depth of one's personal life and relate it to psychological and philosophical aspect. The worldview aspect will include the study which is an attributing factor in the formation of one's world view. The discussion will end with my ability to apply the worldview with different issues that will increase the knowledge for my practice and as a social worker, I can serve better.

Chen et al., (2016), described the world view in aspect of personal and social factors affecting the behavior of the individual. Any individual going through different kinds of bitter experience in the past or have gone through any level of mental trauma through a close person adds to the personal factor of world view. Relating to such factor, I will explain the views of the Tamils and Sinhalese whom I met during the civil war between them. Like a chance meeting with them being a Sinhalese, I found out that they hold a view as Sinhalese being evil. But when a further inquiry was made, I found out that the view of being evil is a reciprocated one, as the Tamils who suffered a loss of family is in the hand of Sinhalese. On the other hand, the members who suffered from LTTE even hold the view that the Tamils are evil. Hence, what I came to know is that the personal trauma plays an important role to shape the worldview of an individual. The views follow a chain system which means that the principles and common belief pass from the parents to the children, and when any social agent transfers any positive views, it helps them to form healthy beliefs. It is important to take care of the peer pressure that may prevent someone to embrace the values, beliefs and various practices for the sake of just fit in (Chen et al., 2016).

Forms of world view and their relation to everyday life

Van der Walt, (2015) explains the world view is our perception of some created reality. The worldview is an indication of an individual's place in the world that functions as a map and provides an orientation as a compass.

The darker side of world view is that sometimes a person degenerates from their ideology. But on the other side if the worldview is taken as something normal and healthy then it can act as a component for an ideal development (Van der Walt, 2015). The ideal development components influence the culture of development that includes the concept of God by specific norms or values. The development ideal even includes the view on being a human being, indulging in a community life, view on nature including a concept of time and history.

Van der Kooij et al., (2013) explains the concept of the worldview with the perspective of religious education. He introduced a distinction between the organized worldview and the personal worldview. The personal worldview depends on upon the organized or unorganized system with a group of believers and their individual perspective on the life and humanity. He discusses such concept with the analysis of some element which includes some existential questions, people's way of acting and thinking when under influence, adopting some moral values to find a new meaning to the life. Van der Kooij et al., (2013) even explains that worldview plays an important role in the education requiring the reflection from the schools. The schools are required to pay attention to the various aspect of the worldview that includes the personal as well organized world views. 

Goplen and Plant, (2015) explains that for some individuals, the worldviews are highly influenced by the religion. Hence, the religious out-group sometimes threatens the basic belief of an individual substituting it with strong religious worldviews (RWVS), by influencing some alternative belief contributing to a threat. So, to develop the healthy idea, it is important to access the RWV threat to the religious chauvinism. He carried out an examination regarding various aspect of the form of worldview belief and found that the people responses mostly to the religious viewpoints that act adversely to make a formation of the alternative belief in the religious aspect. He concluded explaining that subjugation and avoidance of the religious out-group can help protect an individual against the alternative and threatening strategies with strong RWV.

Since I am the social worker; hence it is evident that I come across to different world views believed by individuals. I get to deal different clients and their way and attitude towards the perspective of life. Even as an individual I too have some concept of the world view that influences my life, but as a social worker, it is my duty to stay unbiased towards the various world considered people. I believe that I can serve the client better when there is not the distinction with the inferior or superior. As explained earlier in the view of Chen et al., (2016), that the world view is some of the manifested ideas of an individual and the way look towards they, it will be meaningless if I impose my form of belief on them. The worldview is an absolute formation of the self-concept and their expectations from the surrounding.

Different aspects of the world view

My work with Erica is a different experience, the girl who is 16 years old and has withdrawn from the class with reported low attendance. She is young enough to struggle with some of the issues she faced due to the separation of the parents and her father having a new partner.  Again while I met with her parents, they complained a different issue explaining that Erica moved out from school because of her 17 year old boyfriend.

After the interaction with Erica's parents, I went to meet with the principal of the school. There the principal reported me about her assault to one of her classmate claiming that she along with her boyfriend cheated her. Erica is even more upset when she came to know about the fact that Marnie is firm about her relation with Erica’s boyfriend and wants to maintain the same at any costs.

So, while I made a study on the fact about Erica's behavior, what I came to know is that she has a standard world view of getting cheated and that made her do such incorrect things. Her world view is manifested within the belief of what she experienced and did not get a chance to change the fact. She saw that there is an existence of cheating in the religion of a relation; the primary fact is her parents and then her boyfriend and Marnie. The repeated action of cheating left an everlasting effect in her mind thus instigated her to do all wrongs. It might be the fact that she misses her mother and may be the new partner of her father ill-treated her. Hence, the experience led her to have a worldview that got some psychological dimensions. What I feel is that the situation of Erica goes with the concept of the axiom model. According to Chen et al., (2016), the axiom model has five factors namely social cynicism, fate control, reward for the application, religiosity as well as social complexity. Hence the behavior of Erica depended on the cognitive patterns and behavioral patterns that formed a generalized self-concept. The numerous activity of the cheating occurrence left a deep effect in her mind regarding the general attitude, actions and characteristics. She may be under constant pressure with the situations and it is the duty of the social institution to change the view.

At present Erica holds the world view that the Nazi had while the massive killing of the Jews took place as explained by (Siek, 2013). The purpose of the explanation of the view by Siek, (2013) is that Erica at this moment holds the world view of the elimination of the cheaters in relation as it did not fit with the worldview of Erica, similar to the Nazis.

The principal of the school must act in the formation of a healthy environment and concentrate on those talents that Erica tries to improve. What I observed is that the principal is keen enough to suspend Erica and neglecting on those areas that Erica loves that includes music and drama.

I want to advise the principal to ignore the behavior of Erica and encourage her to have a different worldview with less rigidity. The act of the principal will reduce the threat to the religious chauvinism and develop healthy ideas as explained by (Goplen & Plant, 2015). 

References:

Chen, S. X., Lam, B. P., Wu, W. H., Ng, J. K., Buchtel, E. E., Guan, Y., & Deng, H. (2016). Do people’s world views matter? The why and how. Personality And Social Psychology, 110(5), 743-765.

Goplen, J., & Plant, E. A. (2015). A Religious Worldview Protecting One’s Meaning System Through Religious Prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(11), 1474-1487.

Siek, T. (2013). Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview. Journal Of Interdisciplinary Studies, 25(1/2):179-180.

van der Kooij, J. C., de Ruyter, D. J., & Miedema, S. (2013). “Worldview”: the Meaning of the Concept and the Impact on Religious Education.Religious education, 108(2), 210-228.

Van der Walt, B. J. (2015). Culture, Worldview and Religion: towards a biblical-reformational perspective on development. African Journal for Transformational Scholarship, 1(1), 1-15.