The Anthropology of Learning in Childhood

Edited by David F. Lancy, John Bock, Suzanne Gaskins

Publication date:

16 January 2010

Length of book:

410 pages

Publisher

AltaMira Press

ISBN-13: 9780759113220

The Anthropology of Learning in Childhood offers a large, mural-like portrait of childhood across time, culture, species, and environment. Even a casual reading of the literature on childhood will persuade one that learning is a very important topic that commands the attention of tens of thousands of scholars and practitioners. Yet, anthropological research on children has exerted relatively little influence on this community. This book will change that. The book demonstrates that anthropologists studying childhood can offer a description and theoretically sophisticated account of children's learning and its role in their development, socialization, and enculturation. Further, it demonstrates the particular contribution that children's learning makes to the construction of society and culture as well as the role that culture-acquiring children play in human evolution. Chapters have been contributed in archaeology, primatology, biological and cultural anthropology, and cross-cultural psychology.

Chapter 1. Putting Learning in Context
Chapter 2. An Evolutionary Perspective on Learning in Social, Cultural, and Ecological Context
Chapter 3. The Cross-Cultural Study of Children's Learning and Socialization: A Short History
Chapter 4. Parental Ethnotheories of Children's Learning
Chapter 5. Learning through Observation in Daily Life
Chapter 6. Work, Play, and Learning
Chapter 7. The Role of Adults in Children's Learning
Chapter 8. Learning from Other Children
Chapter 9. Learning in Schools
Chapter 10. Learning Communicative Competence
Chapter 11. Learning Morality
Chapter 12. Learning Gender Roles
Chapter 13. Skill Learning For Survival in Non-Human Primates
Chapter 14. Learning the Environment
Chapter 15. Learning to Hunt
Chapter 16. Learning In and From the Past
Chapter 17. Learning on the Streets: Peer Socialization in Adverse Environments
Chapter 18. Children's Learning in New Settings

David Lancy, John Bock, and Suzanne Gaskins have assembled an outstanding set of essays on what children around the world learn, how they learn it, and the many people involved in that learning. This book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers, educators, and all those interested in a broader cross-cultural perspective on these critical issues for understanding children and childhood.