| Unit name | The Anthropology of Childhood, Learning and Becoming |
|---|---|
| Unit code | ARCH30041 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Morelli |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites | |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Anthropology and Archaeology |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit introduces social anthropological research on childhood and youth, focusing on the diversity of ways these life-stages are constructed, experienced and practised in different social, cultural and economic settings. Starting from the study of babies, to a focus on children at school, work and at play, and considering youth in terms of style, political action and everyday activities, students will explore, ethnographically and cross-culturally, what it means to grow up.
The unit will consider why children and young people were under-researched in traditional social anthropology, the ways in which anthropological approaches have been used to gain access to and understand children and young people's lived experience, and the specific insights these approaches have generated.
Current issues and events such as the English riots, the prevalence of eating disorders, and izikhothane – the South Africa township youth practice of destroying expensive clothes, will be considered in an anthropological frame, and cross-cultural ethnography on related topics will be applied, generating fresh perspectives on these debates.
Themes of social learning and identity formation will run through the course, as we consider how children constitute knowledge of adult practices, and ideas about the world and themselves, in relation to the people around them. Students will be encouraged to consider how we come to know what we know, and reflect on their own learning as part of this. The unit will introduce theories of learning, development and socialisation, and students will consider how child-centred ethnography may confirm, complicate or contradict theoretical understandings of growing up.
Unit Aims
• To introduce students to a range of social anthropological research on childhood and youth,
• To introduce students to the cross-cultural variety of the practices, experiences and expectations of these life-stages this research illuminates.
• To enable students to recognise the specific constructions and expectations of Western childhood and youth, and critically reflect on Western theories of socialisation, development and learning.
• To demonstrate the contribution child-centred ethnographic research can make to mainstream anthropology.
• To provide students with an opportunity to apply their anthropological perspective to current moral and political debates concerning children and young people, and to articulate the distinctive perspectives this anthropological analysis can generate.
At the end of the unit, the successful student will be able to:
1. Discuss a range of anthropological research on children and young people throughout the world.
2. Explain and evaluate theories on socialisation, development and learning, and critically relate these to the ethnographic literature.
3. Employ cross-cultural perspectives in their analysis of issues and concepts concerning childhood and youth.
4. Apply anthropological analysis to contemporary social and moral questions and debates concerning children and young people and develop an anthropological perspective on these debates.
5. Identify processes of learning in context, including reflexive consideration of own learning, and judge the relative importance of contextual and universal factors in these processes.
One two hour lecture-seminar session per week (interactive lecture with seminar discussion within a two-hour slot).
One 3000 – 3500 word essay (50%). Assesses ILOs 1 – 3.
Portfolio (50%). Assesses ILOs 1 – 5.
Boyden, J., & De Berry, J. (Eds.). (2005). Children and youth on the front line: Ethnography, armed conflict and displacement (Vol. 14). Berghahn Books.
Evans, G. (2006). Educational failure and working class white children in Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gottlieb, A. (2004). The afterlife is where we come from. University of Chicago Press.
Honwana, A., & De Boeck, F. (2005). Makers & breakers: children and youth in postcolonial Africa. James Currey.
Lancy, D. F., Bock, J. C., & Gaskins, S. (2009). The anthropology of learning in childhood. Lanham: AltaMira Press.
Montgomery, H. (2008). An introduction to childhood: anthropological perspectives on children's lives. Wiley.
