How is knowledge gained? What are the sources? To what extent might these vary according to age, education or cultural backgrounds?

Authors Avatar

How is knowledge gained? What are the sources? To what extent might these vary according to age, education or cultural backgrounds?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, knowledge is defined as the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning.  Knowledge is gained through direct experience, skills and knowledge claims.  The sources of knowledge are instinct, reason and intuition. In this essay I intend to discuss how gained knowledge and sources of knowledge vary according to age, education, and cultural backgrounds.

There is a lot of knowledge gained through direct experience.  For instance personal familiarity; I know where my undergarments are. I am an adolescent; therefore, because of my age I have become very familiar of where I put them.  However, a toddler may not and thus has to rely on a parent or guardian to get their undergarments for them.

I believe that to a certain extent, knowledge gained through direct experience varies according to education. Someone who has no or little education at all because of financial situations may not know what an educated person knows. This could be that an educated person may know that every school has a headmaster/mistress or at least someone of high authority that oversees the schools running. Through direct experience by going to assemblies to listen to the headmaster or seeing them around an educated person knows there is one. On the other hand an uneducated person may not know this because they haven’t experienced being in a school.

Cultural backgrounds can affect the knowledge gained through direct experience tremendously. I am a Bermudian and English is Bermuda’s main language. I know how to speak English fluently through direct experience, by practising it since I was young. However, a person in China could have Chinese as their first language and not know how to speak English at all, just as I don’t know how to speak Chinese. Another example is in Russia, females walk around arm in arm with their female friends and no homosexuality assumptions would be made about them. In Bermuda if one saw females walking arm in arm they would immediately assume that they were homosexual. This is because through direct experience, Bermudians know that that it is not custom in Bermuda for heterosexuals to walk arm in arm with someone of the same gender.  

Join now!

Knowing how to do things and having skills are different in every person. For instance, I am very artistic. My best friend is also but she is good at drawing by hand and not good at drawing on the computer. I on the other hand am awful at drawing by hand but excel at graphic designing. Therefore our skills are different. So, how does age come to play in knowing how and skills? A five year-old may not even know what graphic designing is, let alone be good at it. However, they may be good at drawing by hand and ...

This is a preview of the whole essay