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Margaret Mead
and the Mead-Freeman Controversy
Margaret Mead1901-1978
Student of Franz Boas at Cambridge, and later became a professor
Academic anthropologist and ethnographer
Popular writer for Redbook and other magazines ,
popularizing the field of anthropology
Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in
astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess.
Margaret Mead
Boasian Thought
Committed student of Franz Boas
Had a personal and academic relationship
with Ruth Benedict
Strong views of cultural determinism
Learned a scientific approach and
methodology in ethnographies
Boas proposed the ultimate question:
Is culture responsible for shaping an individual,
or is nature?
Mead believed the answers would be in
studying the behavior of children and adolescents, but already had a biased
opinion.
American Samoa 1925-
1926
Studied the sexual behaviors and attitudes of adolescent girls
Found them to be sexually promiscuous and free
Noted that teenagers could move freely between homes of relatives when
conflict aroseChildren gradually acquire
responsibilities of adulthood, making transition easy.
Cultural Relativism?
Mead extrapolated the attitudes among Samoan
teenagers to say:
Teenage behaviors such as rebellion and
promiscuity are entirely culturally derived, and therefore not innate in
humans.
Supported Boasian cultural determinism.
Fueled the American sexual revolution of the
60s and 70s
In retrospect:Cultural relativism?
Detachment?Preconceived bias?
Accuracy?
The way to do fieldwork is never to
come up for air until it is all over.
-Mead
Mead-Freeman Controversy
Derek Freeman’s restudy of Samoan
culture
Found Mead’s work entirely in error
Believed Samoans were violent and did not view sex and growing up as Mead believed they did
Said Mead generalized and stretched the truth
to prove Boasian theories and her own preconceived notions
I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.
-Mead
Nature vs. Nurture Debate
Mead: Culture shapes a person – traits are NOT biologically determined
Freeman: The nature of a person is biological, but
culture can change things
The Conclusion?