The Role of Visual Culture in Shaping Chinese Eighth Grade Students' Personal and Regional Identities in Macao

Abstract

Identity formation and the built environment Our built environments are a form of 'human communication between the past and the present … [they] represent an irreplaceable record of human culture and achievement enabling people to understand where they came from, to understand themselves better, to appreciate the perspective of others, and to place their own time within the frame of history' (Short, Erickson & Cunliffe, 1999, pp. 38, 40). When people learn about other times, and in particular other places and cultures, they also become aware of and appreciate more their own culture and themselves. Joanne K. Guilfoil (2004, p. 52) believes that engaging students to visually analyze a property, particularly a local property considered endangered, and moving them beyond factual knowledge attainment to asking controversial questions about history, context, preservation' and related issues on aesthetics, values, ownership, responsibility, maintenance, sustainability etc., can enhance students' in-depth understanding of their lived built environment. It contributes to their formulation of identities. Understanding the place we live is important. Environment psychologists demonstrate that the physical properties of the built environment can influence human's behavior, experience, emotion and worldviews (Ittelson, et al., 1974). The physical reality of our everyday life is not a neutral space. Rather, it is a socio-cultural production – a network of power relationships complexly layered with values (Kellner, 1995; Massey, 2005; Short, 1996). William Neill (2004) provides us impressive accounts how people struggled in regaining their cultural identities through urban restructuring.