ABSTRACT
It is often said that learning, as an aspect of knowledge acquisition and transmission, is at the very core of the anthropological discipline and the concept of culture (Friedman-Hansen, 1982: 189; Lave, 1982). While specific anthropological attention to learning is relatively recent, anthropology’s broader concern with the ways in which individuals acquire the skills, practices, values and beliefs that enable them to become productive participants in their society takes many forms and dates back to the early stages of the discipline. Anthropological theories on learning are as varied as the discipline itself, encompassing perspectives from
evolutionary and biological anthropology (Bock, 2010; Flinn and Ward, 2005; McElreath, 2004; Leigh, 2001), linguistics and archeology (Locke and Bogin, 2006; King, 1999; Ochs, 1998; Schieffelin and Ochs, 1986; Crown, 2010, 2007), and socio-cultural anthropology (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Comitas and Dolgin, 1978; Wolcott, 1982). While these sub-disciplines bring a range of theoretical conceptualizations to the issue of learning, they also share common assumptions about anthropology’s approach to learning. These commonalities will be considered in the final section of this chapter. This chapter will focus on the perspective from cultural and social anthropology, whose initial engage-
ment with the issue of learning has been hugely influenced by research in psychology. A brief overview of the theoretical trends and approaches that have informed and shaped anthropology’s interest in learning will be followed by an examination of some of the key issues and concerns that underpin anthropology’s contemporary engagement with the issue of learning.
