Development History And Apocalypse Of American Educational Anthropology

Educational anthropology is a discipline introduced by scholars in the 1980s, and has been improved and developed in the latest 30 years. Recently, educational anthropology in China is trying to earn a reasonable disciplinary position, and at the same time, it also exists some problems in its development.For America as representative of cultural educational anthropology, its special cultural environment is the prerequisite of emergence of educational anthropology. America is also a young and immigrant country with multiplicity in its culture because different nations and ethnics coexist there, which easily arises some social issues, as well as educational issues. In order to solve educational issues, American anthropologists and educationalists began to study education and educational process from the aspect of culture, take culture as tool and basis for studying education, and solve cultural conflicts and contradictions among various races and ethnic groups. China is a multiethnic country which is made up of 56 nationalities and its cultural diversity has something in common with American cultural background, therefore, the writer, from the starting point of development of educational anthropologist in America, tries to find out valuable experience that can be used for reference.Chinese and foreign anthropologists and educationalists have different points of view on development and disciplinary establishment of educational anthropology, this thesis, on the basis of the study of development history of American educational anthropology, separates development of American educational anthropology into three----sprouting period of the discipline, formation period of the discipline and development period thereof. American educational anthropology sprouted from the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, and in the process of industrialization, anthropologists put forward education when studying social problems, but education was not the main issue for anthropologists. For the two world wars and continual emergence of racial issues, anthropologists and educationalists began to focus on educational issues, the convening of Stanford meeting sped up the combination of anthropology and education, therefore cultural educational anthropology achieved further development and finally established its own disciplinary position. This thesis also summarizes developing characteristics of American educational anthropology, that is, focus on effect of culture, research field into college education, emphasis on fieldwork method and research object for participating in decision making. At last, this thesis puts forward some apocalypse for development of educational anthropology in China on the basis of study and analysis of American experience in order to contribute a little for development of educational anthropology in China.