An examination of worldview in Northeastern Mexico
Date
2018-11-02
Authors
Rodriguez Saldana, Maria Del Carmen
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Abstract
Cultural diversity renders those in the midst of cross-cultural encounters with rich opportunities for understanding the components of other people's conception of the world, their outlook on life, and their value orientations. There are few studies that examine the construct of Worldview as pertaining to Mexican people living in Mexico. Although research has been conducted with people of Mexican descent (i.e., Mexican Americans, Chicanos) mostly in the United States, the development of their experiences, the impact, and the meanings that such experiences represent to them, differ in many ways from the experiences of the participants in this study “An Examination of Worldview in Northeastern Mexico”.
The study focuses on the experiences of nine participants, male and female, between the ages of 25 and 34, who live in Northeastern Mexico and who describe what being Mexican means to them and how they define themselves and their worldview as young Mexican individuals in relationship to five existential categories as proposed by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961). The study examines the literature with respect to worldview, in general, and its recent instrumentation in the field of multiculturalism, in particular. This study utilizes heuristic procedures and in-depth, one-to-one interviews to facilitate the emergence of people's portrayals, which were clustered and analysed always observing the five existential categories.
The findings of the study endorse the value of using worldview as a socio-cultural framework for developing awareness and having a more thorough understanding about differences. McKenzie (1996) says that, “when united in a conversation in which understandings and worldviews are shared, we stand a better chance of reducing the limitations and narrowness of our existing worldviews” (p.123).
Therefore, the implications for using worldview as framework might encourage individuals to reach beyond their own cultural boundaries enabling them to make reflective decisions to enhance the ability to effectively shape an environment inclusive of others from diverse cultures.
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Keywords
Mexicans, Mexico, Northeastern, Multiculturalism