A Companion to the Anthropology of Education

584 Pages·2011·2.167 MB·English

by  Bradley A. U. Levinson, Mica Pollock

A Companion to the
Anthropology of
Education
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The Blackwell Companions to Anthropology offers a series of comprehensive syntheses
of the traditional subdisciplines, primary subjects, and geographic areas of inquiry for
the field. Taken together, the series represents both a contemporary survey of anthro-
pology and a cutting edge guide to the emerging research and intellectual trends in
the field as a whole.
1. A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, edited by Alessandro Duranti
2. A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics, edited by David Nugent and
Joan Vincent
3. A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians, edited by Thomas Biolsi
4. A Companion to Psychological Anthropology, edited by Conerly Casey and Robert
B. Edgerton
5. A Companion to the Anthropology of Japan, edited by Jennifer Robertson
6. A Companion to Latin American Anthropology, edited by Deborah Poole
7. A Companion to Biological Anthropology, edited by Clark Larsen (hardback only)
8. A Companion to the Anthropology of India, edited by Isabelle Clark-Decès
9. A Companion to Medical Anthropology, edited by Merrill Singer and Pamela I.
Erickson
10. A Companion to Cognitive Anthropology, edited by David B. Kronenfeld,
Giovanni Bennardo, Victor de Munck, and Michael D. Fischer
11. A Companion to Cultural Resource Management, edited by Thomas King
12. A Companion to the Anthropology of Education, edited by Bradley A.U. Levinson
and Mica Pollock
Forthcoming
A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment, edited by Frances E.
Mascia-Lees
A Companion to Forensic Anthropology, edited by Dennis Dirkmaat
A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe, edited by Ullrich Kockel, Máiréad Nic
Craith, and Jonas Frykman
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A Companion
to the
Anthropology
of Education
Edited by
Bradley A.U. Levinson
and Mica Pollock
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
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This edition fi rst published 2011
© 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A companion to the anthropology of education / edited by Bradley A. U. Levinson, Mica Pollock.
p. cm. – (Blackwell companions to anthropology ; 18)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-9005-3 (hardback)
1. Educational anthropology. I. Levinson, Bradley A., 1963– II. Pollock, Mica, 1971–
LB45.C653 2011
306.43–dc22
2010049390
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs [9781444396690]; Wiley Online
Library [9781444396713]; ePub [9781444396706]
Set in 10/12.5pt Galliard by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
1 2011
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Contents
List of Contributors viii
Introduction 1
Mica Pollock and Bradley A.U. Levinson
Part I Histories and Generations 9
1 World Anthropologies of Education 11
Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt
2 Culture 25
Frederick Erickson
3 The Ethnography of Schooling Writ Large, 1955–2010 34
Ray McDermott and Jason Duque Raley
4 Education, Cultural Production, and Figuring Out What to Do Next 50
Hervé Varenne, with Jill Koyama
5 Recovering History in the Anthropology of Education 65
Elsie Rockwell
6 The Rise of Class Culture Theory in Educational Anthropology 81
Douglas Foley
7 “If There’s Going to Be an Anthropology of Education …” 97
Harry F. Wolcott
8 Building an Applied Educational Anthropology beyond the Academy 112
Jean J. Schensul
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VI CONTENTS
Part II Education via Language: Speaking, Writing, Playing 135
9 Linguistic Anthropology of Education 137
Stanton Wortham and Angela Reyes
10 The Anthropology of Literacy 154
Lesley Bartlett, Dina López, Lalitha Vasudevan, and Doris Warriner
11 The Anthropology of Language Planning and Policy 177
Teresa L. McCarty and Larisa Warhol
12 Language Socialization across Educational Settings 197
Patricia Baquedano-López and Sera Jean Hernandez
13 Ethnographic Studies of Children and Youth and the Media 212
Joseph Tobin and Allison Henward
14 Hip Hop and the Politics of Ill-literacy 232
H. Samy Alim
15 Argumentation and the Negotiation of Scientifi c Authority
in Classrooms 247
Laura J. Wright, Joel Kuipers, and Gail Viechnicki
Part III States, Identities, and Education 263
16 The Predicament of Embodied Nationalisms and Educational Subjects 265
Véronique Benei
17 Toward an Anthropology of (Democratic) Citizenship Education 279
Bradley A.U. Levinson
18 Development, Post-colonialism, and Global Networks as
Frameworks for the Study of Education in Africa and Beyond 299
Amy Stambach and Zolani Ngwane
19 Civil Sociality and Childhood Education 316
Sally Anderson
20 Anthropological Perspectives on Chinese Children, Youth, and Education 333
Vanessa L. Fong and Sung won Kim
21 Schools, Skills, and Morals in the Contemporary Middle East 349
Fida Adely and Gregory Starrett
22 Educational Policy, Anthropology, and the State 368
Carlos Miñana Blasco and Carolina Arango Vargas
Part IV Roles, Experiences, and Institutions 389
23 Immigrants and Education 391
Margaret A. Gibson and Jill P. Koyama
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CONTENTS VII
24 Variations on Diversity and the Risks of Bureaucratic Complicity 408
Ángel Díaz de Rada and Livia Jiménez Sedano
25 Toward an Anthropology of Teachers and Teaching 425
Sarah Jewett and Katherine Schultz
26 Cultural Anthropology Looks at Higher Education 445
Wesley Shumar and Shabana Mir
27 What Makes the Anthropology of Educational Policy Implementation
‘Anthropological’? 461
Edmund T. Hamann and Lisa Rosen
Part V Interventions 479
28 The Past, Present, and Future of “Funds of Knowledge” 481
Norma González, Leisy Wyman, and Brendan H. O’Connor
29 Multiculturalism and Intercultural Education Facing
the Anthropology of Education 495
Gunther Dietz and Laura Selene Mateos Cortés
30 A Sociohistorical Perspective for Participatory Action
Research and Youth Ethnography in Social Justice Education 517
Julio Cammarota
31 Parents as Critical Educators and Ethnographers of Schooling 530
Janise Hurtig and Andrea Dyrness
32 The Critical Ethnography of Public Policy for Social Justice 547
Patricia D. Lopez, Angela Valenzuela, and Emmanuel García
Index 563
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Contributors
Fida Adely is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in
the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the holder of the Clovis
and Hala Maksoud Chair in Arab Studies. Among her recent publications are “Edu-
cating Women for Development: The Arab Human Development Report 2005 and
the Problem with Women’s Choices,” which appeared in the International Journal
for Middle East Studies in 2009; and “Performing Patriotism: Rituals and Moral
Authority in a Jordanian High School,” which appeared in the World Yearbook of
Education 2010. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Education and Anthropology
from Teachers College, Columbia University in February 2007.
H. Samy Alim is Associate Professor of Education and, by courtesy, Anthropology
and Linguistics at Stanford University. His research interests include language, litera-
cies, and global youth cultures, particularly Hip Hop Culture. He has written about
these subjects extensively in You Know My Steez: An Ethnographic and Sociolinguistic
Study of Styleshifting (Duke, 2004) and Roc the Mic Right: The Language of Hip Hop
Culture (Routledge, 2006). His most recent works include Talkin Black Talk: Lan-
guage, Education and Social Change (with Baugh, Teachers College Press, 2007) and
Global Linguistic Flows: Hip Hop Culture(s), Youth Identities, and the Politics of Lan-
guage (with Ibrahim and Pennycook, Routledge, 2009).
Sally Anderson, anthropologist, is Associate Professor at the Danish School of Edu-
cation, Aarhus University. Her work focuses on sociality, enculturation, and related-
ness, particularly on genres of civil sociality and relatedness children encounter in
Danish schools, sport associations, and religious institutions. She is the author of two
books: I en klasse for sig (In a Class of Their Own) (Semi-V erlag, 2000) and Civil
Sociality: Children, Sport, and Cultural Policy in Denmark (IAP, 2008).
Kathryn M. Anderson-L evitt is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of
Michigan–Dearborn, who has conducted fieldwork in France, the Republic of
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CONTRIBUTORS IX
Guinea, and the United States. She has published Teaching Cultures: Knowledge for
Teaching First Grade in France and the United States (Hampton, 2002), the edited
volume Local Meanings, Global Schooling: Anthropology and World Culture Theory
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), and articles in Comparative Education Review, Ameri-
can Ethnologist, Éducation et Sociétés, and other journals. She edited the Anthropol-
ogy and Education Quarterly from 1994 to 2000 and has served as a president of the
Council on Anthropology and Education.
Carolina Arango Vargas is an anthropologist from the National University of
Colombia, and is currently a Ph.D. Sociocultural Anthropology student at Syracuse
University and a CAS in Women and Gender Studies. Her research areas include
education, modernity, development, the women’s movement, and networks in Latin
America. As a junior scholar she has worked on numerous research projects in the
field of anthropology of education and childhood for Colombian research and
governmental organizations.
Patricia Baquedano-L ópez is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Educa-
tion at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research investigates literacy and
language socialization practices inside and beyond school. A strand of her work has
examined the socialization of ethnic and national affiliation in religious education
classes for young Latino immigrant children at Catholic parishes in California. She has
published her work in the Anthropology of Education Quarterly, Annual Review of
Anthropology, Linguistics and Education, and Mind, Culture, and Activity among
others.
Lesley Bartlett is an Associate Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Her research and teaching interests include the anthropology of education, literacy
studies, and international teacher education. She is the author of The Word and the
World: The Cultural Politics of Literacy in Brazil (Hampton Press, 2010), the co-
editor of Critical Approaches to Comparative Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009),
and the co- author of the forthcoming Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times: Bilin-
gual Education and Dominican Youth in the Heights (Vanderbilt University Press).
Véronique Benei is Research Fellow in Anthropology at the London School of Eco-
nomics, where she has taught and directed Ph.D. theses since 1998. She is also Senior
Research Fellow in Anthropology at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(IIAC/LAIOS) and holds an Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches from Paris Uni-
versity. She did her doctoral work on India at l’École des hautes études en sciences
sociales, Paris and has published extensively on marriage, dowry, epistemology, and
area studies, as well as education, nationalism, and citizenship. More recently, she has
started work in Colombia on urban history and socioeconomic development in rela-
tion to memory and slavery, as well as violence and its aftermath.
Julio Cammarota is an Associate Professor in the Mexican–American Studies and
Research Center at the University of Arizona. His research focuses on participa-
tory action research with Latina/o youth, institutional factors in academic achieve-
ment and liberatory pedagogy. He has published articles on family, work, and
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X CONTRIBUTORS
education among Latinas/os and on the relationship between culture and aca-
demic achievement. He is the co-e ditor of two volumes in the Critical Youth Stud-
ies series published by Routledge/Falmer Press: Beyond Resistance! Youth Activism
and Community Change: New Democratic Possibilities for Practice and Policy for
America’s Youth (2006) and Revolutionizing Education: Youth Participatory
Action Research in Motion (2008). Dr Cammarota has recently published an eth-
nography of Latina/o youth entitled, Sueños Americanos: Barrio Youth Negotiate
Social and Cultural Identities (University of Arizona Press, 2008). His work has
been instrumental in advancing social justice in education and youth development.
Currently, he is the co-d irector of the Social Justice Education Project in Tucson,
Arizona.
Ángel Díaz de Rada holds tenure in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthro-
pology at the Universidad Nacional de Educación (UNED) (Spain). As an ethnogra-
pher, he has worked on scholastic institutions and education, expressive culture, and
ethnic processes in Spain and northern Norway. He has recently published Cultura,
antropología y otras tonterías (Madrid, 2010). He has also co-a uthored, among other
books, La lógica de la investigación etnográfica (Madrid, 1997). Recently, he has pub-
lished “School Bureaucracy, Ethnography and Culture: Conceptual Obstacles to
Doing Ethnography in Schools” (Social Anthropology, 15(2), 2007). A contribution
to Ian Jarvie and Jesús Zamora’s The Sage Handbook of the Philosophy of the Social
Sciences entitled “The Concept of Culture as An Ontological Paradox” (Sage, 2011)
is forthcoming.
Gunther Dietz holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Hamburg Univer-
sity, Germany and is currently Research Professor in Intercultural Studies at Universi-
dad Veracruzana in Xalapa (Mexico) and Secretary General of the International
Association for Intercultural Education (IAIE). He has recently published Multicul-
turalism, Interculturality and Diversity in Education: An Anthropological Approach
(Waxmann, 2009) and co- edited Islam in Education in European Countries: Peda-
gogical Concepts and Empirical Findings (Waxmann, 2009).
Andrea Dyrness is an Assistant Professor of Educational Studies at Trinity College in
Hartford, Connecticut. She is the author of the forthcoming Mothers United: An
Immigrant Struggle for Socially Just Education (University of Minnesota Press, 2011),
and has published in Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Social Justice, and Eth-
nography and Education. Her research focuses on the schooling experiences of trans-
national (im)migrant communities from Central America to California.
Frederick Erickson is George F. Kneller Professor of Anthropology of Education and
Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. His spe-
cial interests are in video-b ased microethnography of social interaction and in ethno-
graphic research methods more generally. His publications include (with Jeffrey
J. Shultz) The Counselor as Gatekeeper: Social Interaction in Interviews (Academic Press,
1982) and Talk and Social Theory: Ecologies of Speaking and Listening in Everyday Life
(Polity Press, 2004). He is a former president of the Council on Anthropology, former
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