Republic of the Philippines

EULOGIO “Amang” Rodriguez

Institute of Science and Technology Cavite, Campus
General Mariano Alvarez, Cavite

Program : MASTER OF ARTS IN EDUCATION

Subject : FS 101 ADVANCED FOUNDATION OF EDUCATION
Professor : DR. AGNES N. COO
Reporter : KAREN P. DOLLETE
Topic/s : CONTRIBUTIONS OF RENOWNED ANTHROPOLOGISTS,
ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETHNOLOGISTS & HISTORIANS
__________________________________________________________________

I. OBJECTIVES

After completing this unit, you should be able to:

1. Describe how evolutionary and historical processes have shaped

primates and human ancestors and lead to the biological,

behavioral, and cultural diversity seen in the present.

2. Describe how cultural systems construct reality differently for

various human groups.

3. Discuss human diversity and how knowledge about human diversity

should lead to a better understanding of and therefore respect

for people whose culture differs from ours.

II. INTRODUCTION

Anthropological foundation traces back the history of our

education in terms of the early forms of culture, beliefs, customs
and traditions which served as patterns reflected to the kind of
educational reform who have today.

Anthropology to education, they can help us evaluate our

mission, goals and vision so we can grow and change. They can help
schools see where they are today and where they want to be, as
well as how to get there.

Anthropology is the study of the origin and development of

human societies and cultures. Culture is the learned behavior of
people, including their languages, belief systems, social
structures, institutions, and material goods. Anthropologists
study the characteristics of past and present human communities
through a variety of techniques. In doing so, they investigate and
describe how different peoples of our world lived throughout
history.

Anthropologists aim to study and present their human subjects in a

clear and unbiased way. They attempt to achieve this by observing
subjects in their local environment. Anthropologists then describe
interactions and customs, a process known as ethnography. By
participating in the everyday life of their subjects,
anthropologists can better understand and explain the purpose of
local institutions, culture, and practices. This process is known
as participant-observation.

As anthropologists study societies and cultures different from

their own, they must evaluate their interpretations to make sure
they aren’t biased. This bias is known as ethnocentrism, or the
habit of viewing all groups as inferior to another, usually their
own, cultural group. 

Taken as a whole, these steps enable anthropologists to describe

people through the people's own terms.

Subdisciplines of Anthropology
 Anthropology’s diverse topics of study are generally categorized
in four subdisciplines. A subdiscipline is a specialized field of
study within a broader subject or discipline. Anthropologists
specialize in cultural or social anthropology, linguistic
anthropology, biological or physical anthropology, and
archaeology. While subdisciplines can overlap and are not always
seen by scholars as distinct, each tends to use different
techniques and methods.

III. LEARNING CONTENT

Contributions of Renowned Anthropologists, Archaeologists,

Ethnologists and Historians

FRANZ BOAS Famous as the ‘the Father of Modern

Anthropology’, Franz Boas was an important figure

in 20thy century anthropology. He played a key

role in organizing the American Anthropological

Association and made contributions in the field of

physical anthropology, linguistics, archaeology,

as well as cultural anthropology.

He argued against the theories that

distinguished people on the basis of race and
discredited the belief that western civilization
is superior to the other societies. In light of
the foundation of education, this indicates
9July 1858 – 21 Dec.
1942 educating people about respecting other cultures –
that there is neither superior nor inferior
culture than any another culture like what the
Western Culture believes of themselves. In the
context of cultural relativism, it refers to not
judging a culture based on our own standard or
perspective – since there is the diversity in the
culture, we are different so we cannot judge.

He was also a prolific writer; some of

his well-known books in the field of anthropology

include ‘The Mind of Primitive Man’, ’  This book

laid the foundation for further studies on

anthropology and is used for academic purposes.

Anthropology and Modern Life’ and ‘Kwakiutl

Ethnography’. Throughout his life he spoke out

against racism and advocated the need for

intellectual freedom and worked to protect German

and Austrian scientists who fled from the Nazi

regime.

He was responsible for establishing

folklore as a field of study in anthropology and

also made a major contribution to the field of

linguistics. To him goes the credit of

establishing it as a science in America. He

continues to influence many scholars and

researchers in all the fields of anthropology.

 “Boas created the four field

subdivision of anthropology in the 20th century”.

5 June 1887 – 17 Sept.

1948

MARGARET MEAD
Margaret Mead was a cultural anthropologist and

writer best known for her studies and publications

on the subject. She became a curator of ethnology

at the American Museum of Natural History, where

she published the Coming of Age in Samoa (1928)—

which became a best seller—and Growing Up in New

Guinea (1930). Altogether, she made 24 field trips

among six South Pacific peoples.

Coming of Age in Samoa, based upon her

research and study of youth primarily adolescent

girls on the island of Ta’u in the Samoan Islands;

16 Dec. 1901 – 15 introduces the book with a general discussion of

Nov. 1978
the problems facing adolescents in modern society

and the various approaches to understanding these

4
problems; religion, philosophy, educational theory

and psychology.
 Her later works included Male and

Female (1949) and Growth and Culture (1951), in

which Mead argued that personality

characteristics, especially as they differ between

men and women, were shaped by cultural

conditioning rather than heredity. Some critics

called her fieldwork impressionistic, but her

writings have proved enduring and have made

anthropology accessible to a wider public.

Moreover, there is the circular approach to

education where learning is in that sense a

spiral– reflecting, moving forward, turning into a

new loop with new experiences and qualitatively

new challenges.

“Anthropology demands the open-mindedness

with which one must look and listen, record

astonishment and wonder at that which one would

not have been able to guess”.

DR. FELIPE LANDA JOCANO Felipe Landa Jocano was

5
a Filipino anthropologist, educator, and author
 known for his significant body of work within the

field of Philippine Anthropology, and in

particular for documenting and translating

the Hinilawod, a Western Visayan folk epic. His

eminence within the field of Philippine

anthropology was widely recognized during his

lifetime,  with National Artist F. Sionil Jose

dubbing him "the country’s first and foremost

cultural anthropologist.

As one of the earliest Filipino-born

researchers to receive proper scholarly training

05 Feb. 1930 – 27 Oct.
2013 in anthropology, Jocano became a pioneer in the

use of Participant Observation as a research

methodology in Philippine ethnographic research,

applying it in numerous places, including Capiz,

Ilocos, and notably, the urban poor community of

Looban, Sta Mesa in Manila.

III. EVALUATION
1. Are all anthropologists alike? State your reason for your

answer.

2. How the anthropologists help the society?

3. How do we apply Cultural Relativism in teaching our

learners?
 4. How studying of culture helps the people in their everyday

living?

5. How does the Circular Approach of Dr. Mead help in school’s

decision making?

IV. IMPORTANCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN EDUCATION

The kind of knowledge anthropology teaches is invaluable, not

least in our turbulent, globalized age, in which people of

different backgrounds come into contact with each other in

unprecedented ways and in a multitude of settings, from tourism

and trade to migration and organizational work.

Anthropology helps the students to provide with the

competences necessary to work with the important topics of

education, learning and knowledge in an increasingly globalized

world. It also analyzes specific (local) practices of education

and knowledge in relation to broader (global) social and cultural

6
context.

There are several reasons why anthropological knowledge can help

to make sense of the contemporary world.

First, contact between culturally different groups has

increased enormously in our time. For the global middle classes,

long-distance travelling has become more common, safer and cheaper

than it was in earlier times.

At the same time as people from affluent countries visit

other parts of the world in growing numbers and under new

circumstances, the opposite movement is also taking place, though

often not for the same reasons. The world is shrinking in other

ways as well. For better and for worse, satellite television,

cellphone networks and the internet have created conditions for

instantaneous and friction-free communications. Distance is no

longer a decisive hindrance for close contact and new,

reterritorialized social networks or even ‘virtual communities’

have developed. At the same time, individuals have a larger

palette of information to choose from than they previously did.

The economy is also increasingly globally integrated. In the

last decades, transnational companies have grown exponentially in

numbers, size and economic importance. The capitalist mode of

production and monetary economies in general, which were globally

dominant throughout the 20th century, have become nearly universal

in the 21st century.

Culture changes at a more rapid pace than ever before in our

era, and this can be noticed nearly everywhere. Youth culture and

trends in fashion and music change so fast that older people have

difficulties following their twists and turns; food habits are

changing before our eyes, leading to greater diversity within many

countries; secularism is rapidly changing the role of religion in

7
society and vice versa; and media consumption is thoroughly

transnational. These and other changes make it necessary to ask

questions such as: ‘Who are we really?’, ‘What is our culture –

and is it at all meaningful to speak of a “we” that “have” a

“culture”?’, ‘What do we have in common with the people who used

to live here 50 years ago, and what do we have in common with

people who live in an entirely different place today?’, and ‘Is it

still defensible to speak as if we primarily belong to nations, or

are other forms of belonging equally valid or more important?’

Finally, recent decades have seen the rise of an

unprecedented interest in cultural identity, which is increasingly

seen as an asset. Many feel that the local uniqueness that they

used to count on is being threatened by globalization, indirect

colonialism and other forces from the outside. They often react by

attempting to strengthen or at least preserve what they see as

their unique culture.

Anthropology can teach important lessons about the world and

the global whirl of cultural mixing, contact and contestation –

but it can also teach us about ourselves. Anthropology takes part

in the long conversation about what it is to be human, and gives

flesh and blood to these fundamental questions. It is a genuinely

cosmopolitan discipline in that it does not privilege certain ways

of life above others, but charts and compares the full range of

solutions to the perennial human challenges. In this respect,

anthropology is uniquely a knowledge for the 21st century, crucial

in our attempts to come to terms with a globalized world,

essential for building understanding and respect across real or

imagined cultural divides, and it is not only the ‘most scientific

of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences’, but

also the most useful of the basic sciences.

V. REFERENCES

Darnell, Regna. “Historical Particularism.” In Theory in

Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 1,
edited by R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms, 397-401. Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference, 2013.
Francisconi, Michael J. “Theoretical Anthropology.” In 21st
Century Anthropology: A Reference Handbook, Vol. 1, edited by H.
James Birx, 442-452. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference, 2010.
Frey, Rodney. “Historical-Particularism-as exemplified by
Franz Boas (1858-1942).” University of Idaho. Accessed February
27, 2015.http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~rfrey/220histpart.htm.
Graber, Robert Bates. “Social Evolution.” In 21st Century
Anthropology: A Reference Handbook, Vol. 1, edited by H. James
Birx, 576-585. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference, 2010.
The Chicago Manual of Style. 2017. 17th ed. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Scupin, Raymond R., and Christopher R. DeCorse.
2016. Anthropology: A Global Perspective. 8th edition. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries,
E-Research by Discipline, Subject: Anthropology. Accessed 12 June
2019. 
http://guides.lib.unc.edu/az.php?s=1107
Turner, Jonathan. “Spencer, Herbert.” In International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 8, edited by William A.
Darity, 57-59. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008.