anyone..please help me with this question. any insights are welcome...

How is knowledge socially constructed, shaped by our cultural perceptions?
how is our knowledge derived from our social and cultural understandings??

pleazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

ANOther stupid head. wants to do the assignment in sajha hehe

SANTAAN THARI THARIKA

THANKS SAJHA FOR the entertainement

blessed
loote :)

no yarrr
i really need some insight kkkkkkkkk

i mean other peoples' insights.

SO YOU NOT READY TO TAKE MY INSIGHT, HUH???

SO I AM NOT GIVING ANNNY, ALTHOUGH I HAVE SOME


GOOD LUXK WITH THE ASSIGNMENT. GET FU__CKING "A" HEHE

LOOTE

i know exactly what kind of insight u have...and no i dont' need it. thanks though.

DONT BE JUDGEMENTAL, AND DON"T UNDERESTIMATE ME. I HAVE FU__CKING ALL A'S THIS SEM AS WELL FOR YOUR INFO.


LOOTE

thanks for helping everyone!!
gotta go.

ok lfc123...i'll help you baby........

Knowledge is Socially Constructed

"Our culture is the sea in which we swim, as transparent to us as the ocean is to the fish that live in it."
George Hein, 1998



The idea that knowledge is socially constructed builds upon the idea that knowledge is constructed. Remember Piaget's explanations of assimilation and accomodation? What is missing from the assimilation and accomodation diagrams is the socio-cultural environment. Our families, friends, school, city, and culture are the social background within which we define our own identity and accomodate and assimilate knowledge. It is by interacting with other people and the world that we learn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism

Try to google the terms and see what you come across.

thanks for that. any more u got?

google is tooo confusing....toooo much info.if i come to sajha, then people can share a couple of lines and i can read that and voila!
plus i am tyring to come up with the thesis haina...and then i have to realte the thesis to allll the readings i have done in class...so google does not help that much.

thanks for teh wikipediai site though

Well, I would have loved to help you, but right now I'm busy with my own homework. When's it due? I can help you in a couple of days. Wednesday after maybe. May some other people will help you out. I am trying to avoid sajha.com for a few days, yet I keep coming here.

its due tomorrow at 4.30....
dont worry. thanks for your offer. i am checking out the wikipedia. after wednesday i can help you with your homework yarr! that is my last exam for the year..yehi. back to work. thanks again.

lfc,

I myself don't believe on knowledge constructed by society, instead, it is real and we are trying to know what's that and how we know that that is truth.

anyway,here is just a start
- http://www.constructivism123.com/What_Is/What_is_constructivism.htm
more essays:
- http://www.towson.edu/csme/mctp/Essays.html

you can go through Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and search how knowldge is constructed by perception or so so
- http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html#c

if you need more about philosophy on knowledge as a social construction, please google bruno latour (he is one of the constructivist of this time), and constructivist approach.
- http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-social/

woww
thanks thah_payen. how about doing my semester readings, and relating it constructivism?....;).
i am an absolute believeer that everything, not just knowledge, is constructed by society. and as we grow up, we lose the blank, innocent, pure state of mind and successufly assimiliate into the "system"......knoweldge is anything but real baby. even facts are biased.
we can get into this argument later though. after my exams are over haii...

Well there are several assumptions to be made here ifc:
First: knowledge is abstract. We cannot weight it or jjudge its quantity. It is created (as scientists believe) within the endless nerve pathways within our brain.
Two: Culture is definable but that is subject to debate. Howveer it can be defined on certain dimensions(for our assumption, we assume its definable)
and third: Society, the space within which these two aspects of humankind are created, needs to be abstract. If society's dimensions could be foraged and defined, society would become definable- thus subjecting it to doctrines that are SPECIFIC- something us humans are afraid of.

When a man is born (and i mean man to be man AND woman as per the already so confusing english language), he is subjected to culture first. The culture of the household- mainly the beliefs in it, the religion (if any), the residents' behaviour. The newborn's growth is accompanied by a rapid growth of perception. The growing child uses the five senses and uses it's curiosity to fuel its hunger for everything around it. Within the walls of the house the child learns what others do. His motive is not to analyse what is being learnt, nor to accumulate knowledge. There is no motvie. We are forced.
The first things we learn are Dos and Donts. There really isnt any reason why we want to learn it either. The next step, once we cross perhaps the age of 10 is a bit of an understanding of HOW things work. But why teach US all these things? The answer lies in survival. Humas are the only species constantly at battle amongs each other for their survival. Parents want their future generation to survive and live long and prosper, a natural instinct among ALL living beings. Thus it seems our culture is itself shaped by the insticnt to survive. Humas' culture have several key similarities everywhere: they're predominantly seen within the lifestyle. Perhaps a reason why we choose to discriminate against people is because of their different culture0- or a different mode of lifestyle- shaped by a totally different mode to survive. Once that insticnt is carved into our daily activities, that becomes our culture- thus our first and ever recurring source for knowledge.

Next comes society. What a man sees within his house, will be at a striking contrast to what he sees outside. Thus along comes the state of analysis, dilemma- where an indvidual starts to see what the society as a whole is doing- in today's context- the WORLD. Ideologies, views, even lifestyles that were previously so strictly followed can be changed from contact with other societies. Society plays the second most key role beause it is the mass- the ruling body- the body that shapes things- it is also the most vulnerable body to outside influences. Without any dimensions as assumed above- it has no barries for inflow and outflow of influence. Thus the individual cultural aspects that make up society is changed when past individuals' cultural aspects change and when the newcomer to the society sees this change first hand (unlike those who have lived only in one type of a cultural environment)- his knowledge is changed again. Thus knowledge changes when society is in a PROCESS of change- as is witnessed in these times when information exchange is faster than ever.

Then there's human curiosity. The one that perhaps separates us from other beings. Curiosity may not seem to be tied to the insticnt of survival but, we CARE to live to be able to further our curosity. It would be sad if we didnt have a bit of gurantee that we would be unalbe to further our research of quantam mechanics or genetics or literature or what not. Also, everything we do, we have claimed so far to be towards the benefit of society. An artitst creates his magic- to enlighten and intrigue people's minds- so that they may enjoy life, SURVIVE IN A BETTER WAY etc. etc etc..Thus even curosity isnt spared from this burden of insticntive nature called survival.

But does that limit the sources of our knowledge. We havent even come to the conclusion of what knowelge is. If the ideas and methods of survival are what constitute the BASIC BASIC building blocks of human knowledge, then we might as well say that what we learn from society is how to survive. So from the moment we are born, to the moment we die- we concern ourselves with our extinction. But if society (and our culture) is supposed to change our knowledge, and the only thing we ever learn is methods for survival, how is knowledge ever created? That may be rhetorical and even a useless question, but the basic idea as i see it is that:
Knowledge derived through the means of soceity and culture are delivered primarily via the desire to survvie amongst the only species that propages knowledge within its communal realm.

This could be total s#1t, but i was bored like never before. My exams are done. no work today so thought i'd waste my time diving into some interesting topics ans share my understanding. heheheh
whats your major by the way? mine is the second highest in the hiearchy of "KNOWLEDGE"

And something tells me i know you. From the way you talk and stuff.