The anthropology of learning in childhood

497 Pages·2010·2.3 MB·English

by  David F. Lancy

The Anthropology of
Learning in Childhood

The Anthropology of
Learning in Childhood
Edited by
David F. Lancy,
John Bock, and
Suzanne Gaskins
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The anthropology of learning in childhood / edited by David F. Lancy, John Bock, and
Suzanne Gaskins.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7591-1322-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7591-1324-4 (electronic)
1. Educational anthropology. 2. Child development. 3. Learning. I. Lancy, David F.
II. Bock, John C. III. Gaskins, Suzanne.
LB1125.A567 2010
306.43—dc22 2009036462
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CONTENTS
Figures and Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Foreword, Robert A. LeVine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
PART I
UNDERSTANDING THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH
CHAPTER ONE Putting Learning in Context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
David F. Lancy, John Bock, and Suzanne Gaskins
CHAPTER TWO An Evolutionary Perspective on Learning
in Social, Cultural, and Ecological Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
John Bock
CHAPTER THREE The Cross-Cultural Study of
Children’s Learning and Socialization: A Short History . . . . . . . . . 35
Robert L. Munroe and Mary Gauvain
CHAPTER FOUR Parental Ethnotheories of
Children’s Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Sara Harkness, Charles M. Super, and Colleagues
PART II
LEARNING AS A SOCIAL PROCESS
CHAPTER FIVE Learning through Observation in Daily Life . . . 85
Suzanne Gaskins and Ruth Paradise
CHAPTER SIX Work, Play, and Learning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Garry Chick
v
CONTENTS
CHAPTER SEVEN The Role of Adults in Children’s Learning . . . 145
David F. Lancy and M. Annette Grove
CHAPTER EIGHT Learning from Other Children . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Ashley E. Maynard and Katrin E. Tovote
CHAPTER NINE Learning in Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Leslie C. Moore
PART III
LEARNING CULTURAL MEANINGS
CHAPTER TEN Learning Communicative Competence . . . . . . . 235
Laura Sterponi
CHAPTER ELEVEN Learning Morality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Heidi Fung and Benjamin Smith
CHAPTER TWELVE Learning Gender Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Heather Montgomery
PART IV
LEARNING TO MAKE A LIVING
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Skill Learning for Survival . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
in Nonhuman Primates
Kerry Ossi-Lupo
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Learning the Environment . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Rebecca K. Zarger
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Learning to Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Katharine MacDonald
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Learning In and From the Past . . . . . . . . . 397
Patricia L. Crown
PART V
LEARNING IN THE 21ST CENTURY
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Learning on the Streets:
Peer Socialization in Adverse Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Jon Wolseth
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Children’s Learning in New Settings . . . 443
David F. Lancy
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
About the Editors and Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
vi
FIGURES AND CREDITS
1.1 S kinner box: device used to study learning
(A. Black graphic) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Shelling peas in Lesotho (B. Spykerman photo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Two girls process grain while their grandmother and a
younger girl look on (S. E. Johnson Photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.1 During a celebration, a Yucatec Mayan girl watches as the
cook serves the meal (photo by S. Gaskins, copyright 2009) . . 89
6.1 A mazigh (Berber) girl with her self-made clay utensils
Igîsel village, Morocco (J. P. Rossie photo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
7.1 Shyrdak construction, Tamchy village, Kyrgyzstan
(D. Lancy photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
7.2 Apprentice coppersmith, Fez, Morocco (D. Lancy photo). . . 160
8.1 Xunka’ and Teresa embroider garments for their father
and brother (A. Maynard photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
9.1 Classroom in Northern Sudan (V. Blaha photo). . . . . . . . . . . 210
9.2 Classroom in Northern Sudan (V. Blaha photo). . . . . . . . . . . 210
9.3 Imitation phase in a Maroua Qur’anic school
(M. Moritz photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
12.1 Prettiest baby contest, Nibley, Utah (E. Lucero photo). . . . . 291
vii
FIGURES AND CREDITS
13.1 Juvenile male Phayres leaf monkey (K. Ossi–Lupo photo) . . . 329
14.1 A young boy paddles a wooden dorry across the
Moho River, Belize (R. Zarger photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
15.1 Aka boys hunting rats (E. Hagen photo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
16.1 ( a and b) Mimbres black-on-white bowls with
scribbled designs (M. Tyndall photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
16.2 (a and b) Mimbres black-on-white scoop with inset
showing spiral with faint outline by skilled potter . . . . . . . . . 407
16.3 (a and b) Hohokam Red-on-buff vessels made by unskilled
learners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
17.1 Taking a break from street outreach activity
(J. Wolseth photo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
18.1 Bookmark seller, Cuernavaca, Mexico (D. Lancy photo). . . . 450
viii
FOREWORD
Robert A. LeVine
Anthropological research on learning has advanced dramatically
since the middle of the last century, and this book’s chapters
provide unique access to the scope, depth and theoretical power
of that progress in scientific understanding. Learning has been fundamen-
tally re-conceived and re-examined in terms of its evolution in humans
and other primate species, its place in the life cycle, its forms and con-
tents under diverse cultural and socioeconomic conditions, and its uses in
unprecedented settings of the contemporary world. The anthropologists
contributing to this volume have documented in depth the ways children
learn in contexts hitherto unknown to Western science, and they have
formulated generalizations about human learning by considering the evi-
dence comprehensively rather than imposing theories of dubious relevance
or extrapolating from restricted studies. The results reveal universals and
variations in learning as a basic aspect of human adaptation.
The study of human learning has come a long way since the period,
roughly 1935–60, when “learning theory” was the dominant paradigm in
academic psychology and “the laws of learning” were thought of as having
been set forth by Clark L. Hull, particularly in his Principles of Behavior
(Hull, 1943). Hull’s integration of the “classical” or associative condi-
tioning of Pavlov with the “instrumental” conditioning of Thorndike
in a unified stimulus-response theory of habit formation was likened to
Newton’s achievement in uniting terrestrial and celestial mechanics in the
mathematical theory of gravitation. Having been established by rigorous
experiments (largely with albino rats learning to run a maze after 22 hours
ix