Multiple Worldviews Research Articles

Rani Manicka’s Touching Earth

Rani Manicka’s Touching Earth demonstrates a narrative discursive style which is indeed an appropriate ground for the study of multiple voices and worldviews. Manicka’s representation of the world through an utmost plurality of consciousnesses, each playing its part on an equal dialogical basis to demonstrate the truth, parallels what Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) describes as a “Polyphonic Novel.” The main aim of this study is to discover, in Rani Manicka’s Touching Earth, the polyphonic elements that Bakhtin attributed to Dostoevsky’s novels. This article further seeks to identify the dialogic relationship between the characters, the active participation of the reader, and the author’s position with regard to these. The final goal of this study is to establish the quality of unfinalizability, the capacity to outgrow the determined fixed definitions, and the shared perception of truth in this novel. As there have been limited Bakhtinian studies on Asian texts and, in particular, none on Rani Manicka’s novels, this study attempts to fill this gap in the literature and thus contribute to the body of research on the dialogical dimension of the novel.

AQAL Integral: a holistic framework for pedagogic research

AQAL is a methodology for the holistic mapping of multiple perspectives and worldviews. Developed by Ken Wilber and colleagues, AQAL Integral analysis is founded in AQ quadrant mapping, which assesses four viewpoints for every situation. These are the Interior Subjective intentional (I) perspective, the Interior Collective cultural (We) perspective, the Exterior Individual (It, she/he) behavioural perspective and the Exterior Collective (They, many, its) social perspective. Each AQ map may be further elaborated as part of a many-layered system. AQAL Integral has a small but growing footprint in Education and, independently, in Geography – especially Urban Studies and GIS.

Getting In and Getting Out Whole: Nurse-Patient Connections in the Psychiatric Setting

As a strong component in patient healing, interpersonal connection in the psychiatric/mental health setting can threaten nurses’ health. Participant observation on four behavioral health and addiction units revealed a process of connecting with patients’ emotional pain, delineating strategies applicable to nurses’ multiple world views and practice styles. Findings from 12 nurses highlighted connectedness as a process and personal decision that, with self-awareness and individualized self-protective/self-separating strategies, can enhance patient healing as well as nurse satisfaction and growth. The evolved model may help nurses ease emotional labor, combat compassion fatigue, enhance performance, and preserve their self in today's complex acute care setting.

Balancing Head and Heart: The Importance of Relational Accountability in Community-University Partnerships

In this article we introduce a “head and heart” approach to community-engaged scholarship. Through the literatures of Aboriginal scholarship and engaged scholarship we reflect on a community-university research and program development project undertaken in response to health and education concerns of Aboriginal people in Canada. We suggest that the head and heart approach was crucial to the program’s success and provides access to an ethical space where multiple worldviews are recognized and where the importance of relational accountability becomes evident. We then examine the implications of this approach for engaged scholarship and higher education practices.

Illuminating the Lived Experiences of Research with Indigenous Communities

The historical exploitation experienced by indigenous people in the United States has left a number of negative legacies, including distrust toward research. This distrust poses a barrier to progress made through culturally sensitive research. Given the complex history of research with indigenous groups, the purpose of this descriptive phenomenological study was to illuminate the lived experiences of both indigenous and non-indigenous researchers conducting culturally competent research with indigenous people. Interviews from 13 social science research experts revealed 6 underlying themes about their research with indigenous people, including respect and commitment, mutual trust, affirmation, harmony among multiple worldviews, responsibility, and spiritual/personal growth.

The CNN defect

Zimbabwe has been in a political and economic crisis for nearly a decade. Although the causes of the crisis are complex and multifaceted, the global media have tended to foreground human rights and good governance issues at the expense of other possible news frames. This article focuses on CNN's representations of the crisis within the context of an election. It argues that while CNN played an important role in human rights within that context, the appropriation of this discourse was largely selective and race and class were very influential in its news narratives. Apart from this, the article also observes that CNN's news frames on the election were episodic, simplistic and lacked contextual grounding. The network's sensationalistic reporting and its selective application of human rights are seen as largely caused by certain ideological and economic imperatives that continue to affect Western journalism's reportage of Africa even in the global age. While CNN's logistical problems of its ban in Zimbabwe are acknowledged, they are not seen as hugely influential in the organisation's news reports. The article concludes that in the global age, global news media such as CNN need a paradigm shift from Eurocentricism to polycentricism where their news must embody and articulate the multiple narratives and worldviews that reflect the hybridity of Africa's post colonies. The subtle demonization of the decolonisation agenda in CNN's news and its isolation from the democratisation project is seen as inimical to the creation of a post-colonial Zimbabwe that can transcend the greater questions of historical justice and economic democracy.

Pluralistic Modeling of Complex Systems

The modeling of complex systems such as ecological or socio-economic systems can be very challenging. Although various modeling approaches exist, they are generally not compatible and mutually consistent, and empirical data often do not allow one to decide what model is the right one, the best one, or most appropriate one. Moreover, as the recent financial and economic crisis shows, relying on a single, idealized model can be very costly. This contribution tries to shed new light on problems that arise when complex systems are modeled. While the arguments can be transferred to many different systems, the related scientific challenges are illustrated for social, economic, and traffic systems. The contribution discusses issues that are sometimes overlooked and tries to overcome some frequent misunderstandings and controversies of the past. At the same time, it is highlighted how some long-standing scientific puzzles may be solved by considering non-linear models of heterogeneous agents with spatio-temporal interactions. As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that a paradigm shift towards a pluralistic or possibilistic modeling approach, which integrates multiple world views, is overdue. In this connection, it is argued that it can be useful to combine many different approaches to obtain a good picture of reality, even though they may be inconsistent. Finally, it is identified what would be profitable areas of collaboration between the socio-economic, natural, and engineering sciences.

Navigating the Ethical Terrain of Spiritually Focused Psychotherapy Goals: Multiple Worldviews, Affective Triggers, and Personal Practices

Constructing mutual, spiritually focused psychotherapy goals is a practice activity fraught with numerous ethical and countertransferential challenges. This article seeks to inform the thinking and enhance the ability of clinical social workers to engage in collaborative and responsive dialogues with their clients regarding the goals of spiritually focused clinical practice by (1) identifying the multiple value frameworks that influence decisions regarding practice goals, (2) articulating some of the ethical complexities and common countertransferential reactions associated with goal setting, and (3) providing self-reflection questions and guides to help therapists navigate the complexities of this material.

Review of The handbook of person-centered psychotherapy and counseling.

In recent decades, the psychotherapy and counseling fields in the States have gradually shifted from a rich heterodoxy of orientations based in multiple world views, epistemologies, and modes of pr...

Preaching from Pictures: A Japanese Mandala Produced and directed by David W. Plath

Preaching from Pictures: A Japanese Mandala Produced and directed by David W. Plath

Pragmatism, Pluralism, Politics: William James’s Tragic Sense of Life

Pragmatism, Pluralism, Politics: William James’s Tragic Sense of Life Jonathan McKenzie (bio) This essay aims to contribute to the growing literature on William James in political theory through an examination of the relation between pluralism and pragmatism in social philosophy. Recent works on James by Connolly (2005) and Ferguson (2007) shed light on the valuable contribution of James’s concept of “pluralism” to understanding and interpreting the increasingly fragmented political landscape of the twenty-first century. While each work and others (Schlosberg 1998; Miller 1997; Flathman 1992) add dramatically to our understanding of pluralism, they do so with an unfortunate misreading of James’s comprehensive project. By concentrating on the relationship between James’s pluralism (his ontological orientation) and his pragmatism (his hermeneutic methodology) this work aims to provide recent readings with additional ammunition as well as substantial reason for reserve in the appropriation of James to the contemporary global-pluralist political cause. I do so in three stages; I will 1)construct the arguments posed by recent political interpretations of James; 2) sketch the relation between pluralism and pragmatism in James’s philosophy; and 3) consider the consequences of a pragmatist interpretation of a pluralistic (political) universe as a politics of the tragic through an analysis of “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life.” In order to make these claims, this essay must take a stance on James’s philosophy that is often challenged. This essay claims that James’s philosophy exhibits a continuous theme. That is, the problem of the “one and the many,” which James calls the recurrent problem of his philosophy, is the problem that connects pluralism and pragmatism and makes one indispensable in interpreting and employing the other. Pluralism, as ontology, requires a means of interpreting value amidst the “blooming, buzzing confusion” (PP I: 462). Pragmatism, as that interpretive device, requires a pluralistic outlook in order to legitimate itself as a hermeneutic tool. It is the continuity of James’s philosophy that requires us to investigate pragmatism and pluralism in concert. Jamesian Pluralism and the Global Order Interpretations of James’s importance for political theory has taken a pluralistic turn, embracing Jamesian pluralism for the case of radical democratic politics. Miller (1997) found, via Jamesian pluralism, a “democratic temperament” that depends on James’s anti-imperialism and suspicion for monism. Schlosberg (1998) “reconstructs” the pluralistic universe through the question of pluralism and social unity, supplying further fuel to the quest for allying James with a sweeping democratic vision that eschews simplicity. The two most nuanced visions for James, however, seem to employ his pluralism for the purpose of articulating appreciation for multiplicity without the companion step of providing substantial means of interpretive strategies for organizing the “chaos” of experience. Both Connolly (2005) and Ferguson (2007) revel in James’s pluralism for its liberatory potential without providing a recourse to the pragmatism that once supplied a great degree of social and political clout for James. In order to fully appreciate this turn in political readings of James, we will investigate each reading in further detail. In the recent work Pluralism, William E. Connolly attempts a summation of his long work of supplying political theory with a “bicameral orientation” (2005: 4). Essentially, this position holds that an individual 1) has a “creed” that he adopts and 2) recognizes this creed is contestable. This bicameral orientation is located within the socio-political sphere, within realms of knowledge, as well as within the universe itself, giving it an ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical flavor. Connolly utilizes James’s notion of “litter” as a move toward an ecological interpretation of pluralism, arguing that the quasi-chaos of the world places restrictions of individual agency and sovereignty (2005: 72–73). For Connolly, the importance of James lies in this reduced sovereignty and the political possibilities that exist within this sphere. James’s pluralism allows a wide degree of faiths to coexist, which, by its nature, reduces suffering (77). This sort of pluralism, a degree of acceptedness and appreciation amidst multiple worldviews, is precisely the recipe for a democratic society. Connolly writes the book with an eye toward conservative media forces, which he fears are reducing the original tendency toward pluralism in...

Conceptualizations of Nature From Science Students in Northeastern Colombia

The purpose of this study was to explore rural and provincial students' conceptualizations of nature in Colombia alongside the science education offered in their school communities. Students' perceptions of nature were produced from interviews that revolved around a focusing event and two eliciting devices to document their views about home, school science, and nature. Eighteen students from two urban and one provincial school communities were invited to participate in an interview. An anthropological approach to education allowed for case descriptions in urban and provincial settings in a northeastern region of Colombia, South America. The findings specifically reflect how multiple worldviews correlate with the framework of school science.

Between Local Culture and School Science: The Case of Provincial and Urban Students from Eastern Colombia

A lack of congruency between the teaching and learning of science and the student’s personal worlds has long been recognised by the international science education community as an issue deserving space in the research agenda. The purpose of this study was to explore the diversity of student reactions when subcultures such as family, community peers, and personal worldviews are considered along side the subculture of school science. Two-hundred and fifty students from urban and provincial schools in the northeastern region of Colombia (South America) participated. From this group, 18 students were interviewed. It was observed that students adopt a compartmentalisation of knowledge that is evident as both an avoiding strategy in the classroom and as a mechanism to differentiate between the natural world of their everyday situations and the one portrayed by a Westernised science instruction in the classroom. The findings reflect how multiple worldviews correlate with student frameworks as implanted by school science.

Teachers’ beliefs and practices within and across domains

This article explores the issue of domain generality of epistemological beliefs and world views of practicing teachers in the context of elementary school teaching. We describe ongoing research that examines beliefs held by teachers and their relationship to instructional practices. We examined the world views and beliefs of practicing teachers in the context of teaching elementary school science. We conclude that teachers endorse multiple world views, report teaching practices that are consistent and inconsistent with these world views, and report domain general teaching practices that extend to subject domains other than science, as well as domain specific teaching practices within the domain of science.

Aligning Academic Activities: Implications for Teaching and Research in a New Zealand Institute of Technology

A problem situation that is at the heart of a New Zealand higher education institute applying for university status is meeting the requirement for sufficient academic staff with postgraduate qualifications. For this particular New Zealand higher education institute that was originally a teaching institution offering only sub-degree qualifications, the move to firstly offering degrees and secondly seeking university status has meant that employment conditions have shifted for many academics. In order to explore the multiple world views on the impact to the whole system of a significant number of staff upgrading qualifications whilst engaged in full-time teaching at the same time, views were sought from senior executives, heads of schools, human resource personnel and staff engaged in their own postgraduate study. Multiple conceptual models have been utilised to gain an understanding of this problem situation: Soft Systems Methodology (Checkland and Scholes, 1990, 1999) in both its original and its current form; complexity theory (McKenna, 1999; Merry, 1995; Stacey, 1996) and context-dependent cluster model (CDCM) (Fielden and London, 2001). These multiple conceptual models have all contributed to providing a basis upon which to compare multiple-perceived worlds with appropriate conceptual models upon which to base a future action plan.

CULTURAL DISSONANCE AMONG GENERATIONS: A SOLUTION‐FOCUSED APPROACH WITH EAST ASIAN ELDERS AND THEIR FAMILIES

In traditional East Asian cultures, high value is assigned to family harmony and filial piety coupled with the expectation that elders will be honored and obeyed. A lifetime of such expectations shapes how elders perceive their role and status in the family. Problems can arise when younger, less traditional, generations do not share these expectations. This article describes a solution-focused approach that facilitates the family in creating a beneficial harmony in situations of cultural dissonance. Family members are empowered to draw on personal strengths in which multiple worldviews and values of individual members are recognized, incorporated, and negotiated.

Linking the personal and the social for a more critical democratic adult education

AbstractThe literature of adult education highlights the need for educators to foster an inclusive learning environment to accommodate the multiple worldviews that learners bring. Missing from the discussion is the interplay among critical reflection of self and practice, knowledge and understanding of the problematic issues, and critical action.

The promise of sociocultural theory in democratizing adult education

AbstractThe most dominant perspectives used to understand adult learning and guide the practice of adult education continue to be those that focus on learning as an individual endeavor with little regard for the sociocultural environment. Sociocultural theory therefore holds promise for incorporating multiple worldviews into the study and practice of adult education.

Information Technology and Ideology

The scientific origin of information technology (IT) does not make it a neutral witness to the ongoing struggle over how scarce resources are used for generating more wealth. This paper argues that the manner in which the technology is used for capturing, reporting and disseminating information reflects the underlying dialectic of control among competing organizational stakeholders as they contest the logic of capitalist priorities. IT's politically intrusive role in the struggle for control is discussed through a critique of a people-oriented information system methodology, Multiview 2, which fails to problematize the struggle over workplace ideology. The paper highlights the significance of this shortcoming by analysing capital's ideological use of business process re-engineering for gaining workers’ consent to their own exploitation. This 1990s’ innovation portrays the subjugation of social interests in favour of the relentless pursuit of profit as a coherent social approach to transforming labour relations. In conclusion, it is proposed that IT's social role should be an emancipatory one, which, given the competitive-interdependent context of work, should facilitate the emergence of multiple worldviews.

Seeking a 'Symbolism Comprehensible' to 'the Great Majority of Spectators': William Lethaby's Architecture, Mysticism and Myth and Its Debt to Victorian Mythography

A central theme of the writings of the English architect and theorist William Richard Lethaby (1857-1931) is the conviction that architecture must fuse the ideas and strategies of multiple disciplines and world-views, and in particular, those of 'art' and 'science'.' Victorian readings of 'myth' demonstrated that such a fusion of 'art' and 'science' was not only possible, but that it also had distinct advantages. Foremost amongst these was the belief that the language of myth possessed a clarity and efficiency - the ability to speak in multiple ' tongues' and communicate with both 'man' and 'child' - which had been lost in modern language? Suggesting that architecture, 'to excite an interest, [both] real and general', must' possess a symbolism immediately comprehensible [to] the great majority of spectators', Lethaby applied Victorian observations on myth to the invention of a modern architectural language? In Architecture, Mysticism and Myth (1891), Lethaby achieved this by arguing that a modern architecture, like the mythic construct of the 'temple idea', must give representation to both the 'known' - rational observations of the phenomenal world- and the 'imagined' - subjective inventions of the artisan or architect.'