How is anthropology used in education?
From its inception, anthropology has been concerned with the processes that transform an infant with indefinite potential into an adult with a particular role in a particular group (family, society, class, nation). To achieve adulthood, an infant must learn, and much of that learning depends on how the adults around them organize themselves. A child’s education takes place not only in schools and other formalized institutions but also through the unfocused processes that inform family and community life. Thus, anthropologists investigate the psychological processes of enculturation and the social processes involved in ensuring that the various human roles that form the web of a complex society are reproduced over the generations.
Learning is at the root of most definitions of culture. From the cultural perspective, learning activates human possibilities and shapes them to fit a particular human environment or “culture.” This process has many facets, including, for example, who attends to a child (mother, older children, other caregivers), when (at various times in the day and over the years), and with what consequences (some organizations are better in allowing children to achieve particular possibilities—failure at school, romantic genius, sensitive husband and father—as these might be mentioned in a eulogy). Without extensive and long-term interaction with adults, human infants cannot develop fully. Human reproduction is not solely a genetic or psychological process; it is also a sociocultural one that produces people with particular abilities specialized for particular positions (and often exhibiting particular disabilities when assuming positions to which they are not suited).
Interest in what is known as the “distribution of knowledge” has transformed enculturation studies and is beginning to converge with work in settings where education is formalized, particularly schools. Through these institutions complex societies reproduce their social organization. There are two vital issues in the field. The first is the need to clarify the processes through which children are placed in particular positions—who and what is involved in making some people janitors and others heads of corporations. The second concerns how to understand how certain processes—particularly those grounded in school examinations and psychological testing—have become the main legitimate means through which people are placed in positions. The democratic ideal that, through testing and examinations, personal merit can be identified and rewarded has seldom worked as hoped. Educational anthropologists point to the continuity between the education the children of the most prosperous receive at home and in their communities, the organization of schooling, and the pedagogical styles used in school. Thus, the children of poor or immigrant families are more likely to fail—whatever their individual merits—because of “cultural discontinuities,” the great dissimilarities between the cultures of their homes and neighborhoods and that of the school. Other studies focus on the structuring of schooling to show how the very concern with measuring merit continually reproduces failure on an ever-expanding scale, thereby devaluing the contributions each individual makes to the welfare of society.
Education and Anthropology
Human beings are curious by nature. In that way, we are all anthropologists in the sense that we possess the universal trait of “curiosity.” From the time that a child asks his mother, “Where did I come from?” human beings question why we were made, why we were born, and where we will go. We exhibit curiosity about the origin of humankind and how our early ancestors communicated, interacted, and survived. We reach out to learn from whence we have come and how life has changed and evolved over time.
Originating from the Greek words, Anthropos, meaning “human or man,” and logia, meaning “study,” the term anthropology defines itself. Anthropology, then, can be understood as the study of humankind from the dawn of man to the present day. It explores early and modern human beings and their cultures, comparing their ways of living and their ways of learning. Anthropology allows us to uncover the roots of our common existence and the sources of our differences. Essentially, anthropology seeks to understand the total premise of human existence from the study of culture and social relations, to human biology and evolution, to languages, to music, to art, to architecture, and to the vestiges of human habitation.
Imagine, for a moment, living in a vanilla world. Surrounded by vanilla flavors and colors, we would be at a loss to understand vanilla in that we would have no grasp of the color or the flavor, nor would we have any means to compare vanilla with chocolate. For the anthropologist, the diversity of humankind provides a colorful basis for understanding any single facet of life or learning in any given individual or community. Among other variables, anthropologists note diversifications in size, shape, language, culture and customs, garb, religion, and worldview.
The Link Between Education and Anthropology
Consider the close link between education and anthropology. Both fields share common roots in their desire to decipher the human experience and our history as a species. Our common interests include, among other things, time, change, creativity, and diversity. Time is a precious commodity. Man is subject to the passing of time. He has attempted to harness time, recording it, and giving it shape and meaning. Time is the tooth that gnaws. Today’s educators create curriculum guidelines, and, working against the clock, parcel out time for instruction to prepare for testing and assessment, certification and graduation. How much time is necessary for learning to take place remains a key question. Similarly, change or evolution is key to the anthropologist and to the educator in terms of history, immediacy, and destiny. Jean Baptiste Monet de Lamarck noted that traits are acquired through use and disuse. Simply stated, traits that are not used fall away, and traits that are used develop, thrive, and evolve. In education, effective teaching strategies are preserved, while less effective strategies are discarded. Over time, change and evolution are apparent in physical traits as well as in knowledge and educational processes.
Creativity has its origin in our primate ancestors. They were the ones who began using and later fashioning crude implements in order to simplify their lives. As an emergent species, man retained this ability and through our enhanced brain, imagined and designed better and more useful tools. Education is furthered as a result of imagination and creativity on even the most basic classroom level. At the classroom level, teachers are challenged to work with diverse populations, thus necessitating creative and imaginative approaches to delivering curriculum. New and innovative ideas for presenting information not only keep the course of study interesting for the student but also refresh the material for the educator. As each child comes to the classroom with his own history, belief system, and learning issues, it is inherent in the responsibilities of the teacher to diagnose and prescribe programming ranging from remediation to acceleration. Educating the public is a daunting task. While externally, it may seem that education and anthropology diverge, in application, they function in the same way; to better understand the human condition. Understanding our beginnings in both the anthropological and educational sense is an effective way to enrich our lives. Anthropologists have alerted us as to how our own culture has shaped our lives. To exclude others’ cultures from our lives, or the lives of the students being taught, is a detriment to our society. Because our culture is changing and will continue to change, a cross-cultural environment open to curiosity, creativity, diversity, and tolerance is needed in American schools.
Value of Anthropology to Education
The classroom environment is a microcosm of the larger society. There, students are active learners and participators within a framework of rules, codes, beliefs, and ethics. Teachers act like anthropologists in that they are asked to understand the “internal logic” of the classroom society. Teachers who develop an anthropological outlook foster a cooperative environment where students’ similarities and differences are accepted and their interdependence is recognized. The anthropological societies established by teachers embrace their diverse members and manifest the sharing of ideas, experiences, theories, discoveries, and expertise. Teachers arm students with global information and thinking skills critical to following various career paths to success in 21st-century business, research, teaching, advocacy, and public service.
With this in mind, the connections between education and anthropology become extremely important, and the fields bear more in common than might be realized. Key skills that are taught and refined in the study of anthropology are germane to the study of education. These include seeking multiple perspectives, rational speculation, dialogue, scientific inquiry, analytical reading, data collection, comparing and contrasting, testing hypotheses, and applying theories. Attention is given to research methodology, logic and reasoning, detailed record keeping, and clear thinking. Notably, the analytical categories and processes that are used to understand tribal and small-scale societies can be useful in understanding the culture of schoolchildren and undergraduate students.
Anthropology has been applied to education dating back more than a century, when Hewett published his thoughts on education in the American Anthropologist. However, the connection between education and anthropology remains a relatively new frontier. To some degree, historically, the education profession revised old programs and practices, renewing and renaming them, and implementing them in what had been hoped to be a new way. A more anthropological approach to change is to study the old programs and practices in light of their relative success, break old molds, design innovations, and implement new and revolutionary practice based on the research. Clearly, this approach precludes that it is the responsibility of the educator to teach social skills and to interact with cultural and ethnic groups other than their own. In turn, this will allow students to study in collaborative situations leading to social acceptance, self-discovery, and the ability to take risks within the learning environment. More and more, education and anthropology aspire to similar goals and utilize similar methods of research and discovery.
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