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- Convenors:
-
Emma Ford
(Royal Anthropological Institute IUAES Commission on Anthropology and Education)
Daniel Ginsberg (American Anthropological Association)
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- Stream:
- Education
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 16 September, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In which contexts are geography and anthropology taught and learned outside the university? From local examples to international networks, we will explore past, present and potential future possibilities for these subjects in formal, informal and public education.
Long Abstract:
In which contexts are geography and anthropology taught and learned in outside the university, and how did it come to be this way? From local examples to international networks, we will explore past, present and potential future possibilities for these subjects in formal, informal and public education. We warmly invite papers from geographers, anthropologists, interdisciplinary researchers, educators, learners and educational communicators.
Papers could focus on geography and anthropology as they are taught in schools; what teaching and learning methods are used? What role does fieldwork play? What pre-university qualifications exist and how are common themes (such as development, globalisation, power, inequality, health and the environment) explored? What skills do school students of geography and anthropology develop? To what extent does studying geography or anthropology foster internationally mindedness, cultural awareness and environmental consciousness? Who decides the type of anthropology or geography we teach (and the values within this)?
Papers could also explore teacher-training pathways, and the extent to which school teachers and university lecturers communicate about pedagogy and course content. Seen as a whole, how closely connected are the realms of pre-university, university, careers and lifelong learning for each subject? How prominent are subject experts in the media? Do specialists regularly write for public audiences? How has the public's awareness and understanding of these disciplines developed? What opportunities exist for the general public to learn about anthropology and geography?
In the field of educational research, what findings come from geographical and anthropological studies of education? What happens when researchers and educators collaborate?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 16 September, 2020, -Patrick Alexander (Oxford Brookes University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will explore the question of how culture and questions of difference are approached in secondary schools, interrogating the ways in which anthropological ideas can be incorporated into different aspects of school curriculum. The paper reflects on the ESRC-funded project 'Teaching Culture and Difference in Schools' to consider the ways of teaching about difference in positive ways, particularly given current political conditions of division and uncertainty.
Anastasia Krutikova (EHESS)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how biological diversity is described in Russian and French secondary schools, and these narratives are related to two national anthropological traditions. The study shows that school narratives promote the same values of equality and diversity, but in very different ways.
Paper long abstract:
Human biological diversity is notoriously controversial topic both in general public debate and academic anthropology. Finding and promoting meaningful ways to describe biological differences have nowadays become important challenge for both anthropologists and educators. School teachers in different countries approach this topic in strikingly different ways. This paper explores how biological diversity is described in Russian and French secondary schools, and how these school narratives are related to two national anthropological traditions. Based on a several sources, including class observations, qualitative analysis of modern biology and geography textbooks, and interviews with geography teachers and textbook authors, I examine the school narratives of human biological diversity. I look over the present-day state of biological anthropology in both countries, in order to understand what kind of anthropology was established in classrooms. The study shows that the school narratives differ significantly in their content. However, both of them promote the same values of equality and diversity. Russian narrative relies on human racial taxonomies to describe and classify human groups, but downscales the importance of biological differences. In France, where race as a concept was excluded from public discourse and research after World War 2, schools have adopted very narrow view on biological differences between human groups, excluding all possibilities to discuss their impact on our societies.
Key words: biological anthropology, secondary education, France, Russia
Antonella Tassinari (Federal University of Santa Catarina)
Paper short abstract:
There is no tradition of teaching Anthropology in Brazilian Schools. This paper aims to discuss some possibilities opened since the 1988's Constitution and former educational laws to teach in schools some anthropological subjects as: gender, cultural diversity, racism and racial relations.
Paper long abstract:
Although Geography is currently teached in Brazilian Schools during the 12 years from Elementary to High School, there is no tradition of teaching Anthropology in the country. Neither it is usual to have job posts to Anthropologists in Schools. This paper aims to discuss some possibilities opened since the 1988's Constitution and the former 1996's General Law of Education to teach in schools some anthropological subjects as: gender, cultural diversity, racism and racial relations. These topics are included in the major goals of Public Education: promote racial and gender equality, promote the recognition and appreciation of the cultural diversity, promote the respect of religious diversity. Focusing on some experiences based on the Law 11.645/2008 (which determines the teaching of African and Indigenous History and Culture in High Schools), this paper will discuss some challenges and strategies to talk about cultural diversity, racism, relativism and ethnocentrism in schools. Since 2008, Sociology is a mandatory subject during the three years of High Schools and has been taken as a space to teach these and other anthropological topics. Unfortunately, nowadays, these conquers have been jeopardizing by the educational policies from Temer and Bolsonaro's Governments, as the High School Reform from 2017. Is the teaching of Anthropology in brazilian schools threatened or have we already built a secure base for its continuity?
Giovanna Guslini (Formerly of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research)
Paper short abstract:
Twinning of schools is an essential tool for an active growth in anthropological and geographical skills together. It is not only a container of interdisciplinary themes and experiences, but also a way for formal, informal and public education involving the twinned territories at all levels.
Paper long abstract:
Focusing on twinning between schools means enhancing an essential tool for the growth of anthropological and geographical skills together. The networks of different schools and territories are not only interdisciplinary containers of themes, activities, experiences, research and training, but also promoters of educational action in the broadest sense: they develop formal, informal and public education, involving actors of all ages and territories at all levels, local, national and international.
Among the actors there are students, teachers, librarians, headmasters, parents... but also policy makers and representatives of various institutions, such as industries, cultural associations and twinned municipalities. Each of them contributes to the promotion of international cooperation through bilateral and multilateral exchanges of experiences and research, as suggested by the International Charter on Geographic Education, Beijing 2016. On the other hand, interaction between people from different cultures is also an important field of study for anthropologists.
Exchanges can be real, with reciprocal hospitality in families or host institutions, or at a distance, through the tools offered by the most modern technologies (chat, videoconferencing, etc…), or they can be real and virtual together: they usually focus on teaching materials and methods, different ways of learning and evaluation, comparison of curricula or discovery of other ways of living, environments and traditions.
The anthropologist and the geographer together can therefore not be missing in a twinning and must work together. The skills of their disciplines and fields of research will certainly help: they will better orient exchanges and lead them to success.
Cynthia del Castillo Tafur (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú)
Paper short abstract:
University Social Responsibility agreements with vulnerable communities strengthen citizenship. Through USR´s approach and methodology, university students carried out communitarian initiatives in Ayacucho (Perú) deconstructing their way of learning and awakening their role in social transformation.
Paper long abstract:
Sacsamarca (Ayacucho) was one of the most affected Andean communities by the Peruvian political violence (1980- 2000), but it also was the first one in rebelling against the terrorist group Shining Path, through two emblematic episodes in 1983 as stated by the Peruvian Commission of Truth and Reconciliation (CVR, 2003). Since the University Social Responsibility agreement between Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) and Sacsamarca was signed (2013), academic knowledge applied to community engagement projects has aimed to contribute to the wellness of Sacsamarca and to social transformation processes, while strengthening citizenship and academic education of PUCP community.
Social diagnosis undertaken by PUCP showed it was crucial to work with Sacsamarca women as they had been largely affected by the political violence. The university proposed then to work on communitarian strengthening through the creation of art spaces facilitated by PUCP students´ volunteering groups from diverse disciplines (mostly Anthropology). Warmikunawan operated from 2015 to 2019 and its objective was to generate a space of encounter and care for Sacsamarca women through the creation of art crafts, which could lead them to acknowledge and enhance their capacities and individual and collective resources.
Participant observation made shows the achievements and challenges to gain Warmikunawan´s objective but also the diverse forms in which students re- invent what is learned within their classrooms, becoming aware of their role as citizens and future professionals in terms of shaping social transformation and assuring they- along with Sacsamarca women- can be agents of change and collective action.
Judith Okely (Oxford UniversityUniversity of Hull)
Paper short abstract:
Draws on experiences teaching Day Release teenagers 'Liberal Arts' in the late 60s, giving anthropology lectures in Hull prison as part of a diploma for university entrance and the requests she received for literacy and spatial geography lessons during ethnographic research with Gypsies in Britain.
Paper long abstract:
Inspired by Professor Dorey's 2014 Inaugural lecture 'Geography, Inequality and Oxford' which exposed extremities of difference, this presentation recalls the experience and ethnography of teaching Day Release teenagers 'Liberal Studies' at the Oxford College of Further Education, in the late 60s. Fresh from a postgraduate diploma in FE, this would-be anthropologist confronted rural/urban, class divisions and racism to a multicultural group, never destined for university. Lessons about power, geographical localities and differences included visits to Morris Motors, a Magistrates court, rural Oxfordshire and the film 'In the Heat of the Night'. The students, who included Jamaican migrants, articulated their differences and new self awareness. Many lived in localities unfrequented by university members, although today now gentrified. One former pupil is key receptionist at an Oxford College and always greets her former teacher. This future professor of anthropology would embrace many of the same variegated strategies when teaching undergraduates. Her fieldwork among Gypsies, just 50 miles from Oxford, sometimes triggered requests among a largely non literate group for lessons in literacy and spatial geographical issues. Later she was invited to give anthropology lectures in Hull prison as part of a diploma which facilitated university entrance. The all male 'students' sat in a circle overseen by the warder behind a glass wall. One inmate successfully applied to read anthropology at Hull and graduated with distinction. Anthropology and geography, using qualitative or sweeping broad methods confront the cultural implications of difference in locality, space, poverty or privilege.
Daniel Ginsberg (American Anthropological Association)
Paper short abstract:
By creating an exhibit for public libraries on the subject of human migration, we are making scholarship accessible to general audiences and providing a focal point for programming and community engagement. Our "designing for empathy" approach envisions visitors developing a compassionate worldview.
Paper long abstract:
Far more than simply collections of books, modern public libraries are trusted local institutions that support lifelong learning and community dialogue. For social scientists seeking to offer informal education, they avoid the structural challenges of schools, where students' time and teachers' attention are strictly regimented to meet curriculum and assessment targets, as well as the institutional barriers of museums, which many people perceive as elite or inaccessible. To identify and recruit host sites for their forthcoming traveling exhibition, World on the Move: 100,000 Years of Human Migration (expected to launch in late 2020), the American Anthropological Association and Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage are partnering with the American Library Association, whose Public Programs Office offers public libraries in the United States access to expertly created materials on topics of public interest. Not only are library patrons able to visit these exhibitions at their convenience, but librarians also use them as a focal point for coordinating public programming featuring representatives of community-based organizations and of the community at large. This presentation outlines the process through which scholarship from anthropology and allied disciplines is translated into a form that is both accessible to library patrons and respectful of the resources available to libraries as host institutions. Particular attention is paid to the process of "designing for empathy" (Gokcigden 2019) that envisions the exhibit visitor developing a compassionate worldview, as the primary project goal is to help visitors recognize that migration is a shared human experience that connects us all.
Hylton Howard Arnolds (Iziko Museums of South Africa) Anna de Jager (University of South Africa)
Paper short abstract:
Geo-literacy forms an integral part of school learner's comprehension about the world on a local or global scale. One of the places where learners are able to test their geo-literacy skills is in museums.
Paper long abstract:
Geo-literacy includes the spatial skills that are acquired to contextualise oneself in relation to the natural and social environment. By accessing geographical skills learnt at school, learners are able to increase their comprehension of the world in terms of social, environmental, economic and political issues on a local or global scale. One of the places where learners are able to test these skills is in museums. Museums offer an attractive framework for some of the big ideas in geography such as location, correlation, process, pattern, distribution, consumption and scale. One of the key demands placed on South African museums is their educational mandate to emphasise the importance of enhancing social cohesion. The Iziko Museums of South Africa are a group of eleven museums located in Cape Town that creates a nexus where school learners are able to learn about their own national heritage through educational programmes. These programmes instil pride, promote knowledge, stimulate dialogue and encourage problem-solving around the museum collections, research activities, and exhibitions. A museum setting creates opportunities for school learners to make sense of their own world and to develop multiple intelligences. Geo-literacy in museum education can play an important role in improving awareness of the challenges of the past and, potentially, can improve capacity towards problem solving in the present and future.
Philippe Charpentier (Cufr Mayotte) Georgeta Stoica (Centre Universitaire de Recherche et Formation (CUFR) de Mayotte)
Paper short abstract:
The aim of this communication is to show the interest of anthropology and its methods to a better understanding of the primary school pupils' achievements in the field of geography
Paper long abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the results of a survey that was conducted among first and second year elementary school pupils in France. Pupils were asked to propose different types of facilities to be developed on an island so that a population could live there. The survey aims to understand what the pupils mobilize in terms of knowledge, awareness, and geographic skills to respond to the proposed exercise. We uderline that currently the data from this survey are being processed. While we can grasp from a first analysis what the pupils mobilize in terms of geographical knowledge, we realize that this survey does not allow us to get a precise understanding of the perceptions that pupils have of their space and the way in which they can apprehend and represent it. For this reason, a straight collaboration with anthropology and the use of its ethnographic methods, such as participant observation and interviews following the survey, would surely have enabled us to better understand the work and the world of thought of the pupils in relation to this notion of "living". The questions we will address here are as follows: What might be the contribution of anthropology to a better understanding of the productions and the universe of thought of the students in geography? How can we combine the views of geography and anthropology on the notion of "living"? What (if any) new collaborative methodologies can be developed?