Margaret Mead

The Human Revolution [and Comments and Reply]

Except for an introductory discussion of methodology, this paper is an effort at a narrative account of the evolution of our ancestors from proto-hominoid times to the earliest fully human stage.

An anthropologist at work : writings of Ruth Benedict

The product of a long collaboration between two distinguished anthropologists, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, who was Benedicts pupil, colleague, and finally, literary executor and biographer.

Our Educational Emphases in Primitive Perspective

Modern conceptions of education are contrasted with the primitive emphasis upon the need to learn that which was fixed and traditional, based primarly on the child as the learner. Today, owing to the meeting and mingling of peoples among whom superiority was claimed by one as over against another, our concepts of education have been shaped by the will to teach, colonize, or assimilate adults. From the observation of this process in the next generation we have come also to be believe in the power of education to create something new, not merely perpetuate something old. But not until the dogma of superiority of race over, race, nation, class over class, is obliterated can we hope to combine the primitive idea of the need to learn something old and the modern idea of the possibility of making something new.

The Methodology of Racial Testing: Its Significance for Sociology

A discussion of the methodology of racial intelligence testing is both pertinent and necessary. Three problems are involved: measurement of (I) the racial admixture factor; (2) the social status factor; (3) the linguistic disability factor. The methodology of each of these phases of the problem is discussed.

A Research Film Program in the Study of Changing Man [and Comments and Replies]

In dealing with human culture, researchers must often work with phenomena to which they cannot return because the passage of time irrevocably changes their makeup and because ethical and human considerations make it impossible to manipulate their subject in the laboratory under experimental conditions. Many believe that the loss of such information about the development and responses of man in many now disappearing diverse environmental and cultural milieus could be of critical importance to our knowledge about, and even to the survival of, our species. The problems posed by these limitations on the study of man can be mitigated by a research cinema film concept and method wich allows repeated review of selected aspects of human behavior and culture for careful scientific study. The research cinema film is a potent tool for immediate, intensive work on the documentation and study of changing man, including those cultural groups hitherto so isolated that they have retained diverse patterns as yet uninfluenced significantly by the major technological, ideological, and religious currents affecting most of the world. Film records will not only preserve much information for study which would otherwise be lost, but will also provide a window on the original phenomena through which other anthropologists and scientists can have a look for themselves, if they want to question inferences drawn by earlier workers. Research films are neither a summation of information, a demonstration of a conclusion, nor the imposition of an already structured idea or system of knowledge, but rather a source of material for viewers with research interests in events of the past. In contrast to the production of usual motion pictures, the work of preparing research films is principally that of extensive identification of subject-matter in its original time sequence and correlation of the filmed data with other associated material. All episodes are identified in time, place, and subject, and the filmers objectives and predilections are indicated. Such research films can be returned to again and again as the source of data for diverse further research stimulated by advances in the methods and findings of the human sciences.

The Pattern of Leisure in Contemporary American Culture

Leisure as a thing to be earned and re-earned was the typical pat tern of traditional American culture. There was a definite rhythm between work and leisure, and all leisure was seen in the context of future work and good works. The depression and World War II brought about many imbalances in this system. In the last decade there has been a subtle shift in the balance from work and good works to the home. This is now the center for existence which in turn justifies working at all; the role of husband and father has become a vital one. Although there are many rewards in this home-oriented setup, there are also stresses and strains. These are often relieved by getting out of the home and away to work. At the moment our problem is to reach a new balance in which we discard the outmoded sequence of an age of scarcity and satisfac torily integrate the home ritual and shorter working hours of our new age.—Ed.

Soviet attitudes toward authority : an interdisciplinary approach to problems of Soviet character

This book is a survey, on different levels, of the nature of Soviet leadership. An intensive study was made of Soviet newspapers, professional journals, movies, and records of Party Congresses, and selected interviews were carried out with emigres of different periods.

The Contemporary American Family as an Anthropologist Sees It

Among the variety of patterns which the family has taken in other cultures, the American type of family has distinguishing features. In the small isolated family characteristics of American cities, the husband is insecure about his job and the wife about hers, with consequent special problems. Correctives in the form of community services and a new ethic of continuous joint responsibility for family life are emerging.

Early Adolescence in the United States

American adolescents are expected to mimic the ways of adults, long before they are emotionally ready for them. The category teenager, inclusive from 13 through 19, has resulted in a public image which expects great precocity from the young teenager and irresponsibility from the old teenager. This category inappropriately lumps together immature children whose growth spurts have hardly begun and mature young people who are permitted to marry and produce children and expected to support themselves. By making &dquo;the teens&dquo; a category, within which a nineteen-year-old hoodlum’s vicious destructiveness and a thirteen-year-old’s mischief are bracketed together, we have endowed the younger teenager with

Values for Urban Living

Technologic change may take away from the cities of the future all the functions once made necessary by war, poor communications, and the need to concentrate populations for production and consumption. But the unique function of cities in providing for contact among many kinds of human crea tivity will remain, possibly to be met by cities that are centers for the new conference methods of multimodal communication.