Visionary Observers: Anthropological Inquiry and Education

287 Pages·2006·1.55 MB·English

by  Jill B. R. Cherneff

Visionary Observers
Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology
series editors
Regna Darnell
Stephen O. Murray
Visionary
Observers
Anthropological Inquiry
and Education
Edited by
Jill B. R. Cherneff
and Eve Hochwald
Foreword by Sydel Silverman
University of Nebraska Press • Lincoln and London
© 2006
by the
Board of Regents
of the
University of Nebraska
All rights reserved
Manufactured
in the
United States of America
Chapter 3,
“A Century of
Margaret Mead”
by Ray McDermott,
previously appeared in
Teachers College Record
103, no. 5 (2001): 843–867.
∞
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication
Data
Visionary observers:
anthropological inquiry and
education / edited by Jill B. R.
Cherneff and Eve Hochwald;
foreword by Sydel Silverman.
p. cm.—(Critical studies in
the history of anthropology)
Includes bibliographical
references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-8032-6464-9
(pbk.: alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-8032-6464-x
(pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Educational
anthropology—
United States.
2. Anthropologists—
United States.
I. Cherneff, Jill B. R.
II. Hochwald, Eve.
III. Series.
lb45.v57 2006
306.43—dc22
2006009265
Designed by R. W. Boeche.
To our families

Contents

List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Sydel Silverman
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii
Jill B. R. Cherneff and Eve Hochwald
1. Franz Boas
Scientist and Public Intellectual . . . . . . . . . 1
Regna Darnell
2. Ruth Benedict
Relativist and Universalist . . . . . . . . . . . .25
Virginia Heyer Young
3. A Century of Margaret Mead . . . . . . . . . .55
Ray McDermott
4. Education and Democracy in the
Anthropology of Gene Weltfi sh . . . . . . . .87
Juliet Niehaus
5. The Social Anthropology of
Hortense Powdermaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Jill B. R. Cherneff
6. Culture and Race in the Classroom
Jules Henry and Ruth Landes
on American Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Richard Handler
7. Human Activity and a Theory of Schooling
An Assessment of Solon Kimball’s
Anthropology of Education . . . . . . . . . . 167
Alexander Moore
8. They Are All Our Children
Eleanor Leacock and the
Anthropology of Education . . . . . . . . . . 195
Eve Hochwald
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .249
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Illustrations

1. Franz Boas in the American Southwest, 1921 . . . . 2
2. Ruth Benedict in the American
Southwest in the 1930s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3. Margaret Mead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4. “Stimulation and Frustration” by
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead . . . . . . . . . 66
5. Gene Weltfi sh in Oklahoma, ca. 1925 . . . . . . . . . 88
6. Hortense Powdermaker, 1930 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
7. Ruth Landes in Potawatomi cloak, ca. 1935 . . . 150
8. Jules Henry with Mescalero Apaches
in the 1930s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
9. Solon T. Kimball in 1974 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
10. Eleanor Leacock in Labrador, ca. 1951 . . . . . . . 196