1.1.5 Factors that Influence Beliefs and Values

 

Individuals do not live in a vacuum. Whether we limit these interactions or not, we are all surrounded by other people. Families, friends, neighbourhoods, schools, workplaces, and religious communities all help mould you into the person you are and will become. Each play a key role in shaping your beliefs and your identity.

The Role of Culture

A broad term, culture can include the values, religious or spiritual beliefs, language, food, clothing, marriage customs, and approaches to child raising that are shared by a particular group of people.

Your culture is something you share with other people. Cultural beliefs and values are collective beliefs and values. You do not have an individual culture. As you have learned throughout your Social Studies education, culture is a complex term referring to the ways groups of people live and change over time. Your culture includes your heritage, ethnic background, religion, language, traditions, and ways of doing things.

Culture is learned and passed from one generation to the next. Each person is born into a specific cultural situation and absorbs the values, attitudes, and behaviour patterns of that culture. This doesn’t mean we fully embrace these beliefs and values as a complete set, rather our other individual beliefs and values may cause us to act more independently (individually) than collectively (part of a group). This helps to explain why the values and beliefs of an individual or group may change as time progresses and can also be a byproduct of the environments and experiences each come in contact with.

Canada is a multicultural country. That means that it includes many groups of people with varied backgrounds and beliefs. In our pluralistic society, most Canadians value the diversity that comes with having many cultures living together in one country.

Take notes about the main ideas as you read the pages in your textbook, listed below.
Refer to the tutorial How to Take Notes

• You will not be asked to submit your notes for marking, but they will help your understanding of how these factors influence ideologies later on in the course.