EDUCATION AND ANTHROPOLOGY

EDUCATION AND ANTHROPOLOGY
Edited by GEORGE D. SPINDLER

Papers from participants in the June 9-14, 1954 Conference sponsored by the School of Education and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Stanford University and the American Anthropological Association.

The opinions, concepts, and hypotheses expressed and developed in Education and Anthropology represent a new fusion between two fields of study. Each is concerned with a special aspect of the development of man; in the main, each has hitherto approached its goals independently of the other. In the conference from which this book stems, twenty-two outstanding anthropologists and educators met to pool their thinking for mutual benefit in the two fields.
Their intent was to explore ways in which understanding of social pressures and cultural patterns can help educators to understand the role of education in the cultural process and to function effectively in a society where values, beliefs, and attitudes are changing rapidly.
The topics discussed include the history of relations between education and anthropology; the school in the community context; ways in which educational goals are defeated by conflicts between cultural ideals and action; different types of communication and teacher-student relations; ways of developing intercultural understanding through education; differences between educational needs and cultural forces in the childhood and adolescent years; the relationships between anthropological and educational theory and philosophy; methods for the study of school systems in various social environments; and the dilemma of the educator in the South, where segregation has strong social and political support but has been declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court decision. Papers on each topic, written by authorities in the respective fields, were distributed before the conference as the basis for interchange of ideas. The book includes both the papers and transcripts of the ensuing discussions, edited by Dr. Spindler, together with an overview summary by Margaret Mead, one of America's leading anthropologists with an intense and long-term interest in education.
Research and application already accomplished are reviewed incidentally to critical analysis of projected developments of education and anthropology. Specialists in education evaluate, modify, and reformulate the approaches of the anthropologists in the light of their professional experience; anthropologists apply their concepts, methods, data, and point of view to the educative process in its broadest sense.
The result of such interdisciplinary collaboration is a fully co-operative product, filled with new concepts, hypotheses, and approaches. In the discussion of the effects of racial desegregation in Southern schools, practical suggestions show what kinds of data and ideas the anthropologists could organize to present to educators faced with the task of implementing the Supreme Court decision-a "field problem" of considerable importance.

This is a reproduction edition from a scanned copy of the original work:
Title: Education and Anthropology Editor: George D. Spindler
Publisher: Stanford University Press, 1955 ISBN: 080473822X

Authors of papers by: L. James Quillen, George D. Spindler, Bernard J. Siegel, John Gillen, Solon T. Kimball, Cora DuBois, C.W.M. Hart, Dorothy Lee, Jules Henry, and Theodore Brameld

Commentaries and discussions by the above and: Felix M. Keesing, Robert N. Bush, Hilda Taba, Lawrence K. Frank, William E. Martin, Margaret Mead, Fannie R. Shaftel, Paul R. Hanna, Arthur P. Coladarci, William H. Cowley, Lawrence G. Thomas, and Alfred L. Kroeber