Call for Papers - Learning Unlearning: Critical Dialogues Between Anthropology and Education

 

Learning Unlearning:

Critical Dialogues Between Anthropology and Education

A one-day conference organised in conjunction with the journal

Teaching Anthropology

www.teachinganthropology.org

editorsteachinganthropology@gmail.com

http://teaching-anthropology.blogspot.com

September 22^nd 2011

Department of Education, University of Oxford

Keynote Speakers:

Dr. David Shankland, Director of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI)

Dr. Peggy Froerer, Director of the Centre for Child-Focused Anthropological Research (CFAR), Brunel University

Dr. Simon Underdown, School of Social Sciences and Law, Oxford Brookes University

Confirmed Speakers and Discussants:

Professor Anne Edwards, Director of the Department of Education, University of Oxford

Professor Roger Goodman, Head of Social Sciences Division, University of Oxford (discussant)

Learning Unlearning explores the revelatory paradoxes that lie at the heart of pedagogy and anthropological inquiry. One of anthropology’s strengths is its determination to unravel hidden meanings and complexities in taken-for-granted assumptions about social worlds. Such parallel processes of revealing the unexpected, making the strange familiar, and the unknown known, are important for all involved in pedagogy. Teachers of anthropology, and those seeking to teach anthropologically, see their task as helping students unlearn their preconceptions about phenomena before they can fully grasp alternate ways of thinking. Similarly, academics, teachers and students of all kinds sometimes have to unlearn assumptions – for example, about disciplinary boundaries or received wisdom about academic practice, methodological approaches or epistemology – in order to move knowledge forward. Unlearning becomes just as important as learning in the process of developing new knowledge.

This one-day conference opens up dialogues between academics, teachers and students in education and anthropology about the meaning, experiences and implications of learning unlearning. Papers are invited to explore learning and unlearning on multiple levels:

• Teaching unlearning (or teaching ‘anthropologically’): what can anthropology tell us about inspiring critical, analytical approaches and practices of inquiry in the classroom, the seminar or the lecture theatre?
• Learning to unlearn: how can anthropologists engage more critically with their own educational practices? What can anthropologists gain from greater critical engagement with educational research?
• Unlearning institutional practices: can processes of unlearning help us to re-imagine disciplinary boundaries, professional hierarchies and collaborative practices between students and teachers in educational institutions?
• Unlearning methodology: how can learning and unlearning about methodology (and ethnography in particular) help stimulate new and innovative approaches to how research is carried out, both in and across education and anthropology?
• Exploring teaching and learning anthropology within the context of the new A-Level qualification: what are the implications of the emergence of anthropology in secondary education? What must we unlearn about anthropology as a discipline as it becomes established in secondary education, and what can anthropology add to the social worlds of schools?  
• How can the dialogue between anthropology and education help us re-imagine how, where and when learning takes place? What are the new creative spaces for learning and unlearning that could emerge from a deeper engagement between anthropology and education?

If you would like to propose a paper or a themed panel, please send a title plus a 400-word abstract and author information to patrick.alexander@education.ox.ac.uk by Monday 4^th July 2011. Selected papers will be included in a special edition of the journal Teaching Anthropology.

We are keeping the cost of attendance low at just £20 (to cover lunch, refreshments and an afternoon reception). To reserve a place and arrange payment, please email:

patrick.alexander@education.ox.ac.uk

The journal Teaching Anthropology will be launched at a drinks reception following the conference.

A-Level Anthropology: reflecting on the first year

As we move towards the beginning of April 2011 most of the UK's new A-Level Anthropology students will be finishing off their first year of study and will soon begin to prepare for AS examinations in May and June.  It therefore seems like a good time to pause and reflect on the successes and challenges facing A-Level Anthropology in its first year as a subject being taught at secondary schools and colleges for Further Education in the UK.

The arrival of the A-Level in Anthropology is the result of much wrangling among social anthropologists in Britain about the potential implications of teaching anthropology in secondary schools, as David Mills points out in the first edition of Teaching Anthropology (see 'Have we ever taught anthropology? A hidden history of disciplinary pedagogy', available at www.teachinganthropology.org). Is it possible, concerned anthropologists have asked, to neatly reduce the essential elements of anthropological theory and practice (whatever these may be) into a textbook for use in the classroom? Are A-Level students capable of dealing with the complex issues at the heart of anthropological inquiry? And what is the impact of surrendering anthropology to the rigours and limitations of a rigid framework of written, summative assessment and examination? That A-Level Anthropology has made its debut in British secondary schools and sixth form colleges is indicative of the fact that tentative answers have been put forward for these questions: yes, it would seem possible to develop textbooks of general value to students, as has been the case in the United States for several decades; yes, it would seem that A-Level students are capable of taking on the intellectual challenges that anthropology presents; and yes, it is possible, to some extent, to measure their ability to do so through standardised testing, as is the case on most undergraduate courses in anthropology.

However, all of these questions become somewhat academic if we do not first consider the practical implications of putting forward Anthropology as a viable option at A-Level in schools - particularly given the current regime of austerity and cut-backs and the planned 'slimming' of the curriculum in the UK state secondary schools. We might begin by asking how many schools provide A-Level Anthropology and how many students have chosen to study Anthropology at A-Level this year. While it's difficult to pin down an exact number, the examination board AQA tells us that some 300 students were entered for A-Level Anthropology examinations in January 2011, and that these students came from approximately fifteen institutions. Given that the Office for National Statistics reported a total of 3.5million further education students in the UK between 2007/2008 (see Social Trends 40, pp. 32), relatively speaking this is quite a small number of participating students. Obviously it is likely that uptake is going to be small to begin with for a new A-Level subject, but we might ask what other factors are influencing this slow start for Anthropology in secondary schools. Are schools simply not willing to take a risk on a new, 'unproven' subject because money is in short supply and there are no guarantees about its success? Are students similarly cautious about investing their efforts in a subject that may not have currency either for future job prospects or for the increasingly perilous process of applying for a place in Higher Education? If this is the case, will the current climate of austerity hamper the chances of success for A-Level Anthropology even before it gets off the ground?

These issues lead us to some other questions that while based in simple economics also have broader implications for A-Level anthropology. We might ask, for example: given the financial constraints on schools, are there actually many teachers who are being hired to teach Anthropology, or is Anthropology mainly going to be taught by existing teachers of A-Level Psychology and Sociology? What are the implications of this, either positive or negative, for students' understanding of anthropology as a discipline? Sociology and Psychology are well-established options at A-Level - do schools see Anthropology as sufficiently different to make it a viable alternative option in the sixth form? As an anthropologist of education currently teaching A-Level Sociology, it is easy to see how the two subjects overlap in certain areas of content, but I can also see how the 'exotic' tropes of Anthropology might appeal more to students with an interest in a broader cross-cultural perspective of the world. It will be interesting to see whether or not Anthropology itself might in this sense become 'exoticised' in secondary schools, in order to contend with its competitors at A-Level.

With the AS exam period around the corner, and new options being sought and chosen by next year's prospective A-Level students, it remains to be seen how Anthropology will fare in its second year as an A-Level subject. For now, we might simply ask: will A-Level Anthropology survive another year? I certainly hope so, but the challenges are significant.

   

 To have a look at the specification for AQA A-level Anthropology, click here

Beginning to think about the goals of teaching anthropology today...

Teaching anthropology in the UK today is undergoing an important change - anthropology has now become an 'A' Level subject, which means that it will be taught not only at universities but also at secondary schools and colleges of further education. This is a great opportunity to reflect on what it means to teach anthropology to young people before they go to University. How will it be different to teaching anthropology to undergraduates and postgraduates? How will it transform the way we conceive of teaching and learning anthropological fieldwork, given it is sometimes said that anthropology demands a certain level of life experience and wisdom from its scholars if they are to understand and conduct ethnographic research?

One may argue that some of the key anthropological proclivities include an openness to diversity and people and a readiness to (at least temporarily and to a certain extent) embrace different worlds in order to understand them. Could we then hope that through delving into anthropology from a rather early age, young people could rely on this 'A' Level subject to add to their moral journeys towards mutual tolerance and respect in our multicultural society? Or, as some colleagues have begun to wonder, in order to make anthropology appealing to a younger generation, would we have to exoticise the Other and make the journey 'exciting'? What would be the consequences for conceptualising difference and diversity then? And, would we need to be alarmed about 'exoticising' and its excitations or could we find there a spark of initial enthusiasm to nourish an exploratory, reaching-out spirit sustaining the necessary and abolishing the unnecessary boundaries between self and other? Learning anthropology without doing fieldwork (or would 'A' Level students have fieldwork practice eventually?) still demands vivid imagination, some wisdom and patience when entering unfamiliar worlds. How could teachers best support these first encounters with ethnography? What would be the specific goals and methods of teaching anthropology as an 'A' Level?

Could we and how could we teach anthropology as a philosophy and practice of humanism, where one reaches out to the other through experiencing, understanding and respecting what binds and separates people?