Based on my fieldwork with Burmese teachers in Thailand, I describe the drawbacks of using IRB-mandated written consent procedures in my cross-cultural collaborative ethnographic research on education. Drawing on theories of intersubjectivity (Mikhail Bakhtin), ethics (Emmanuel Levinas), and translation (Naoki Sakai), I describe face-to-face…

This article discusses emerging research on youth and Indigenous languages. Based on a comparative and international Indigenous education study in Peru and the United States, the intersection between Indigenous community spaces, schools, and languages is examined. Given global trends of Indigenous language loss, comparative research provides the…

Anchored in insights from my evolving research in Mexico and the United States, this article engages the literature on democratic citizenship education and proposes a potentially unifying research program for the anthropology of education. I urge anthropologists of education to address questions of political order and to bring democracy and…

Asserts that power relations in all societies are partially defined by who has access to and knowledge of the component cultures in complex, multi-cultural societies. "As multi-culturalism becomes more pronounced and elaborated, and the field of power becomes greater with increasing social complexity, multi-culturalism becomes an ever more serious…

This article uses an examination of the formal instruction of the Bumbudye association in Zaire to point out problems that exist in anthropological writings concerning primitive and modern schooling in nonindustrial, non-Europeanized nations. (Author/EB)

The outgoing president of the Council on Anthropology and Education discusses "areas of substantive concern that our organization and field might wisely attempt to grow into." He focuses on cultural futuristics, global emphasis, macro approaches, quantitative methodology, political economy, dependency, exploitation, life-long and nonformal…

Reports on: (1) the formulation of a holistic, systems-based theory of cultural transmission; (2) a field guide developed for gathering the precise data needed to test the theory; and (3) a pilot study, involving the collection and analysis of data about six- to 12-year-old Americans, Israelis, and Mexicans, to test both guide and theory. (CMG)

Critiques Dobbert et al's holistic systems analysis approach to cultural transmission, as presented in this journal. Argues that there is no substitute for the ethnographic narrative as the cornerstone of cross-cultural comparison and that the model is mainly useful as a mnemonic for other scientists trying to generate comprehensive models. (RDN)

In commenting on Dobbert et al's article (this issue), submits that the guiding principle of cultural anthropology, participant observation, is absent from their field guide. Argues that difficulty in studying cultural transmission cross-culturally is not only related to diversity in content but to deeper differences in metaphysical outlook. (RDN)

Concludes that the model of cultural transmission designed by Dobbert et al and described in this journal is a major advance in the field, but that the model will only be fully rounded once they incorporate the processes by which the learner acquires his or her culture. (RDN)

Sees Dobbert et al's model of cultural transmission (this issue) as generalizing, structural, mechanical, predetermined, formal, digital, and etic. Posits an alternative approach that is idiographic, processual, organic, open, nonformal, analogical, and attentive to emic data. Argues that the Dobbert model accounts inadequately for the implicit,…

Commenting on Dobbert et al's article in this issue, argues that the best data on the transmission of culture can be obtained by combining a variety of methods, focusing on one domain and on a limited set of hypotheses at a time. Believes that, ideally, collaborative studies are required. (RDN)

Criticizes Dobbert et al's model of cultural transmission (presented in earlier article) as being a species of social physics. Suggests improvements to the model, notably that observation and analysis at the emic level be taken into account. (RDN)

Dobbert et al defend their model of cultural transmission. In answering eight commentaries, focus is on (1) their holistic perspective on learning; (2) their desire to occupy a middle ground between ethnographic detail and generalized law; and (3) their attempt to place their holistic thesis within the ethnographic tradition. (RDN)

Describes a study of Liberian schools in which students of the Vai tribe are instructed in Western mathematical practices which differ from those of the students' home culture. Reports that the Vai children employed syncretic arithmetic practices, combining two distinct systems of arithmetic in a classroom environment that tacitly facilitated the…