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THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF
TEACHING AND LEARNING
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Catherine Pelissier

Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824

KEY WORDS: anthropology and education , modes of education, communication style,

socialization, modes of thought

As the study of culture, a phenomenon that is socially rather than genetically

constructed and transmitted, anthropology assumes flexible individuals cap­
able of teaching and learning. Learning and teaching are fundamental, im­
plicitly or explicitly, to human adaptation, socialization, culture change, and,
at the broadest level, the production and reproduction of culture and society.
Broadly conceived to encompass a range of possible forms, contents, and
contexts, then, teaching and learning-the social processes involved in con­
structing, acquiring, and transforming knowledge-lie at the heart of an­
thropology.
The American subfield "Anthropology and Education" is embodied in the
Council on Anthropology and Education, in its publication, the Anthropology
and Education Quarterly, and in numerous texts and anthologies on the topic
(43, 57, 104a, 119, 120, 123, 135a). Its interests are wide in scope: The
culture of classrooms, cultural congruence between school and home, bilin­
gual education, modes of education, methods appropriate to the study of
educational phenomena, and the teaching of anthropology are only a few. Its
endeavor has been both theoretical and applied, with special concern in recent
decades with the differential school achievement of various popUlations (25,
79,96, 97, 122, 131).
The concern with teaching and learning, however, predates the official
formation of the subfield in 1968 (29, 45a, 84) and has taken many forms.
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0084-6570/91/1015-0075$02.00
 76 PELISSIER

Rather than attempt an exhaustive review of the history and various per­
mutations of the anthropology of teaching and learning, this review touches
selectively on some key topics; namely, modes of thought, cross-cultural and
everyday cognition, socialization, communication style, and modes of educa­
tion.
I focus on two issues throughout the review. The first concerns the use of
various dichotomies in discussions (or constructions) of differences between
"us" and "them," and between forms of education. These dichotomies often
express value judgements (certain ways of teaching/speaking/thinking are
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considered more abstract/sophisticated/better than others) and power in­

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equalities (whether it be the power of representation, or the power to impose

specific policies or programs). Insofar as the "us" side of the dichotomy is
usually the "better" one, "we" (Westerners, adults, males, members of the
middle class, etc) tend to be the beneficiaries of such constructions (30). The
second issue concerns the place of practice and activity in discussions of
learning and teaching. In recent years, as Ortner (98) has pointed out,
anthropology has increasingly taken up a number of approaches that may be
grouped under the rubric of "practice," the central problem of which is "that
of trying to understand how the system constructs actresses and actors and
how these agents realize and transform the system" (19). Such approaches
build on Giddens's (34) call for the mutual consideration of structure and
action. In this review, I point both to how certain approaches to the anthropol­
ogy of teaching and learning have been overly static and deterministic, and to
recent movements in the direction of practice, activity, and agency considered
in the context of structure.

MODES OF THOUGHT

Anthropologists' interest in how cultural others think and see the world is
reflected in part in a concern with modes of thought. Discussions of modes of
thought pivot around several theoretical perspectives: evolutionism, the great
divide (between, for example, literate/preliterate and abstract/concrete), func­
tionalism, and structuralism.
While Darwin is credited with the development of evolutionary theory in
biology, Spencer, Tylor, and Morgan (although not the first to do so) are
credited with the application of evolutionary frameworks to social and mental
phenomena. Tylor's (132) stages of savagery, barbarism, and civilization are
well known, as are Morgan's (91) further divisions of savagery and barbarism
into lower, middle, and upper stages. In a social evolutionary framework,
culture evolves through stages, along with which, it can be inferred, the
intellect evolves. Social and mental evolution are thus parallel, and influence
each other though a kind of feedback mechanism. Judgments of superiority
 TEACHING & LEARNING 77

(of Western modes of thought) on the one hand, and deficiency or irrationality
(of "primitive" modes), on the other (31), were part and parcel of evolution­
ary frameworks that employed the comparative method, whereby existing
"primitives" were held to represent our ancestors. It is significant, however,
that Tylor, a proponent of "psychic unity," or the notion that minds function
in similar ways under similar conditions, stressed what was acquired, rather
than inherited, in his definition of culture as "that complex whole which
includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabili­
ties and habits acquired by man [sic] as a member of society" (132, p. 1). The
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implication here was that all groups are capable of "evolving" to a "civilized"
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state.
Writing in the tradition of French sociology, Levy-Bruhl (73, 74) disagreed
with evolutionism, invoking instead a great divide theory in which "primi­
tive" mentality was not a precursor to "civilized" mentality but was rather of
an entirely different order. In keeping with the Durkheimian notion of social
facts as things, Levy-Bruhl argued that collective representations-sets of
beliefs and practices characteristic of particular societies-rather than in­
dividuals, were the object of analysis. Levy-Bruhl used the former, culled
from missionary and travel reports, to argue that "primitive" mentality was
both mystical and pre-logical, meaning that ideas and images are not sepa­
rated from the emotions that they invoke, and that connections are made
between phenomena that "civilized" mentality separates, such as animate and
inanimate objects. At the most fundamental level, then, "primitive" mentality
is "oriented in another direction than our own" (74, p. 69).
Boas (6) argued against both evolutionism and the equation of race and
culture, culture and thought. Boas's thoughts are best summarized in the
context of his arguments with Levy-Bruhl. He argued against Levy-Bruhl on
two points; methodologically, on the grounds that inferences about individual
mental functioning cannot be made on the basis of collective beliefs and
practices; and in terms of content, on the grounds that ethnocentrism leads to
misunderstandings of, and thus false claims about, cultural contexts. Boas
disputed four assumptions about "primitives"; that they cannot control their
emotions, that they suffer from short attention spans, that they cannot think
logically, and that they demonstrate a lack of originality. In contrast, he
claimed that human intelligence-"the ability to form conclusions from prem­
ises and the desire to seek for causal relations" (6, p. 134)-is a universal. His
emphasis, then, was on cultural contexts, and he was concerned with un­
derstanding cultures in terms of themselves, rather than in relation to grand
theoretical frameworks.
Levi-Strauss (71) also argued against valuations of "primitive" and "civil­
ized" thinking, claiming instead that each mode of thought, or classification,
represents a strategy for making rational sense of nature. "Primitive" as well
 78 PELISSIER

as "civilized" people, then, are concerned with objective knowledge and

engage in ordering elements in their worlds. The difference lies in what
people use to classify and order their worlds. While the "primitive" bricoleur
uses a set of generic "tools" that are applied to a variety of projects, the
engineer of Western culture uses "tools" specifically designed for the project
at hand. The bricoleur is limited by what is concretely available and thus
practices a "science of the concrete," while the engineer strives to go beyond
what is given to infer structural relations between objects.
While attempting to avoid evolutionary frameworks, Levi-Strauss clearly
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invokes a great divide, as an outline constructed by Goody (39) illustrates

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(Table 1). Writing, necessary for "the capitalization or totalization of knowl­

edge," which in tum was necessary for the development of complex Western
civilization, provides another key distinction between these two approaches to
the world (72). A great divide framework is also evident in the work of other
scholars on "open" and "closed" systems in both Africa and the Pacific (35,
46, 47), as well as in contemporary distinctions made in our own society
between experts and lay people, and between classes, ethnic groups, and
genders (see references 5, 67, and 70 for examples and critiques).
Malinowski (78), writing from a functionalist perspective, eschewed both
evolutionary and great divide frameworks, offering instead a synchronic
interpretation based on the functions of various phenomena in society. Magic,
for instance, functions in both the psychological and group life of "primitives"
to move people and objects in order to accomplish practical activities: to get
canoes built, fish caught, food harvested. Moreover, he argued, while "primi­
tives" practice magic, they are not entirely mystical: They are aware of natural
phenomena and cause-effect relations; they never confuse the two; and they
never rely on magic alone while often relying solely on practical knowledge­
in short, they practice what might be called science (the observation of natural
phenomena, and the application of logical and rational approaches to the
world).

Table 1 Brief outline of the great divide invoked by Levi­

Strauss (from 39)

Domesticated Wild

"hot" "cold"
modem neolithic
science of the abstract science of the concrete
scientific thought mythical thought
scientific knowledge magical thought
engineer(ing) bricoleur( -age)
abstract thought intuition, imagination , perception
using concepts using signs
history atemporality; myths and rites
 TEACHING & LEARNING 79

A somewhat different tack was taken by people in linguistic anthropology.

Claiming that the structure of language determines (or at least reflects) the
structure of thought (the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; 109, 110, 144a), Whorf
(144) argued that the analysis of "primitive mentality" is a cultural, rather
than a psychological, issue. Since language and thought are directly related to
each other, the analysis of language-a phenomenon subject to systematic
and scientific inquiry-provides the analysis of thought. Whorf claimed that
the issue in discussions of "primitives" was not evolution but ethnocentrism.
He decried superficial analyses of language that were often used to indicate a
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lack of abstract thought among "primitives" (e.g. the Eskimos have words for
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different kinds of snow, but no word for the general category "snow"),
claiming instead, on the basis of his own research on Native American
languages, that "primitives" are often as "rational," if not more so, than we
are. (Hopi, for instance, contains more distinctions between cause and effect
than does English, and its distinctions are more sophisticated.)
The above approaches to modes of thought form a body of debate and
argument concerning evolution, the great divide, inferiority and superiority,
and the proper object of analysis. What they share, however, is not only the
anthropological endeavor to gain insight into cultural others, but also a
somewhat static view of the social world. The emphasis is on social facts and
collective representations, social (or language) structures or functions, all of
which place society or culture "out there." The structure of the language, the
collective representations, and so on, are complete phenomena that are "in
place," determining the worlds and activities of people who find themselves
in those places; little attention is given to notions of either social construction
or human agency. As such, these approaches contribute to one side of the
tension in anthropology between structure and action, between social worlds
and minds. Work on modes of thought, however, lays the groundwork for
much of the work on cross-cultural cognition, to which I now tum. While this
work, too, suffers from a somewhat static approach to the social world,
scholars have increasingly emphasized activity and practice.

CROSS-CULTURAL AND EVERYDAY COGNITION

The major concern in the study of cross-cultural cognition, which draws on

issues of importance to both psychology and anthropology, is with whether or
not people in other cultures, classes, ethnic groups, or genders think like
(white, male) Westerners. Do they, for example, have the capacity for
abstract thought, and can they generalize across contexts? A tension has
existed historically between claims that individuals in different cultural
groups actually possess different capacities, and claims that what we really
see cross-culturally are simply various manifestations of universal capacities.
Following from the kinds of value confusions often generated by great divide
 80 PELISSIER

and evolutionary thinking, one of the enduring concerns has been with
whether or not "their" thinking is as advanced as "ours. "
In studies of cross-cultural cognition, the "us-them" dichotomies have been
examined in terms of, for example, classification, concept formation, mem­
ory and recall, discrimination, logical problem solving, and transfer. In other
words, cognition is divided into specific capacities or properties, and the
concern is with the degree to which an individual (as representative of a
particular group) has these capacities or properties.
Marked differences in performance on intelligence tests among different
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groups of people have prompted investigations of phenomena that may have

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an impact on cognition, or at least on performance. Schooling and literacy­

often considered as representative of Westernization-have been the most
salient examples of such phenomena. Luria (77), for example, found that
literate peasants exhibited greater ability for decontextualized and abstract
thought than did peasants who were not exposed to literacy or other training
programs. Discussions of the impact of schooling and literacy on the
generalization of rules and the transfer of skills across contexts, and on
strategies for organization and classification, are repeated throughout the
literature on cross-cultural cognition ( 14, 18, 64, 105, 124).
Greenfield & Bruner (4 1), concerned with the intersection of biology and
culture, focus on the tools, or technologies ( 10) provided by schooling;
schooling in tum provides environments that "push" cognitive growth further
than other environments. Included here are leaps from both concrete to
abstract thought and from collective to individualistic orientations. The dis­
engagement from the everyday world fostered by the decontextualized nature
of schooling allows individuals to move beyond the limits imposed by the
more restricted environments in which nonschooled (read "primitive") or
otherwise "culturally deprived" (read "lower class" or ethnic minority) in­
dividuals live. The connections between the great divide and evolutionary
approaches discussed in the previous section and the dichotomies and evolu­
tionary leaps discussed here are noteworthy. In this case, fundamental (di­
chotomous) differences can be overcome by certain (evolutionary) develop­
ments, such as those provided by schooling.
Recent work in cross-cultural cognition has entailed a move beyond a
concern with cognitive properties as static phenomena that people do or do not
have in their heads, to a concern with practice and activity-with the em­
beddedness of cognitive skills in particular interactive contexts rather than in
isolated minds. One underlying assumption of this approach is that cognitive
skills are inextricably tied to the practices and activities that invoke them ( 15,
118). This approach also reflects a concern with the methodological and
theoretical problems associated with the application of Western-style tests in
non-Western contexts, and with the use of tests or tasks per se (15-17, 37, 59,
6 1, 65, 92, 1 15, 1 18).
 TEACHING & LEARNING 81

Researchers are increasingly emphasizing everyday experience as a phe­

nomenon of interest in its own right, and replacing tests with experiments
designed to build on and replicate real life practices. The work of Lave and
her colleagues (67, 68) on people's uses of math in real life situations like
grocery shopping and dieting, and Scribner's ( 1 16) work on the dairy in­
dustry, demonstrate the interest and importance of everyday activity. Ex­
periments used in the study of cross-cultural and everyday cognition, more­
over, draw on detailed ethnographic analyses of what it is that people actually
do, and of the skills connected with these activities (15, 62, 68, 118). The end
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result is a mutually informative combination of observation and experiment

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rather than a situation in which observation or experiment is used exclusively

(9, 116).
Much of the research on cross-cultural and everyday cognition draws on
Vygotsky's (133, 134) work on the social development of cognitive skills (see
also 136, 137). Key to his approach is the claim that higher mental functions
are social before they are internalized by the individual, and that they become
internalized by means of social interactions. One focus in research building on
a Vygotskian approach is on how neophytes are guided by those with greater
expertise; this is often referred to as "scaffolding" (after Bruner), occurring in
the "zone of proximal development," or that space between what someone can
do alone and what they can do with guidance-in short, their potential (11,
41, 107, 138).
The collection of articles on everyday cognition edited by Rogoff & Lave
( 108) illustrates the increasing emphasis on cognitive practices, as opposed to
capacities. The focus of inquiry, Rogoff states, is on "the purposes for which
people engage in activities and the pragmatic considerations involved in
people's solutions to problems" (106, p. 8). Put simply, the goal of doing a
math problem in the grocery store is not doing math but getting the grocery
shopping done (67). Not only the task at hand, but also the larger social and
cultural order within which the task is embedded, must be considered in any
analysis of particular cognitive activities. This focus on what-it-is-that-is­
being-done-here entails both a move away from "us-them" dichotomies, as
embodied in notions of static cognitive properties, and towards greater em­
phasis on practice and activity.

SOCIALIZATION

Unlike work in modes of thought and the earlier studies of cross-cultural

cognition, the emphasis in studies of socialization is not on properties of
minds or world views but on the acquisition and reproduction of ways of
being in the world. Central to the culture and personality school of the 1930s
and 1940s, and strongly influenced by Freudian psychoanalytic theory, stud-
 82 PELISSIER

ies of socialization form a major strand in the anthropological study of

learning and teaching.
By and large, studies of socialization havc focused less on the acquisition
of particular skills (although these are often mentioned) and more on the
acquisition of cultural norms, values and beliefs, and rules for interacting with
others. The central concern has been with how infants and children are taught
to "think, act, and feel appropriately"; education, broadly conceived, is seen
as the means by which individuals are recruited to be members of a culture,
and by which culture is maintained (121). In addition to journal articles and
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chapters in larger ethnographies (28, 89), the question of how one becomes a
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member of a particular social group has been, since the 1920s, a major focus
of a large body of anthropological work.
The culture and personality school, concerned with the relationship be­
tween cultural and psychological variables, and with the validity of supposed­
ly universal stages in development (or, more broadly, theories about human
nature), provides the backdrop for the most famous socialization studies. The
Whitings' Six Cultures project, which compared child rearing practices across
cultures, is representative of a culture and personality approach that relied on
interviews and systematic observation of specific variables (90, 139, 140,
142). Other early work focused on the use of projective tests (such as
Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Tests), and on the comparison of
psychological and ethnographic analyses (21, 36, 103).
Mead's Coming ofAge in Samoa (82) is a particularly well-known study of
socialization. In the context of debates concerning biological versus cultural
determinism (32), Mead set off for Samoa, a culture drastically different from
that in which psychological theories of human development were emerging,
to see if stormy adolescence is a cultural universal. Her research resulted in
the first monograph-length study of teaching and learning which focused,
m oreo ver on teaching and learning outside of a school setting (24). In it,
,

Mead emphasized the stages of life through which Samoans pass, and what
was expected at each life stage; she also showed how these expectations were
acquired and fulfilled by means of interactions with peer groups, older
relatives, and the church.
The emphasis on child rearing practices and on the socialization processes
unique to each life stage is typical of earlier socialization studies. Whiting's
(141) work on the Kwoma and Mead's (82, 83) work on Samoa and the
Manus provide classic examples of this approach. Some of the Case Studies in
Education and Culture, edited by the Spindlers in the 1960s and 1970s,
provide other examples (54, 143). Bateson, Mead, and Macgregor's work on
the Balinese (3, 85), which used photographs taken by Bateson, is a more
innovative example of a socialization study. Recently, Briggs's (8) innovation
has been to include both childhood socialization and her own socialization as
 TEACHING & LEARNING 83

the adopted daughter of an Utku family in the Canadian Arctic. Her work
provides a particularly detailed analysis of sanctions in socialization.
A distinction can be made between studies of socialization that focus on
how people learn to be members of traditional cultural groups and those that
look at the juxtaposition of traditional and Western cultures, most often as it is
embodied in a school. Again, the Case Studies in Education and Culture,
many of which focus on Western-style schools in non-Western contexts and
on different, often conflicting, approaches to education, provide good ex­
amples of the latter (33, 42, 48, 58, 99, 104, 145). Howard's (49) work on
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Rotuma provides another example of this concern, and anticipates more

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recent work on differences between communication style and approaches to·

learning in non-Western or minority groups, on the one hand, and those
favored in Western school systems, on the other.
In both types of study, however, the emphasis is on the norms, beliefs, and
activities of various cultures, and on how people learn them. Particular
emphasis is placed on roles, and on the teaching and learning methods
embedded in child rearing practices (e.g. modeling and sanctions).
Studies of language and socialization represent a somewhat different strand
in ongoing socialization studies. This research relates the acquisition of
language to the acquisition of culture; in other words, it examines how
children are socialized to use language, and how they are socialized through
language (113, 114). In the context of anthropology's endeavor to gain insight
into the production and reproduction of culture and society, language is,
according to Schieffelin & Ochs, "a critical resource for those who wish to
understand the nature of culture and how cultural knowledge and beliefs are
transmitted both from generation to generation and in everyday interaction"
(11 4, p. 183).
There are numerous examples of work focused on language and socializa­
tion. Schieffe1in (111 , 112), for example, analyzes how Kaluli children learn
particular relationships. The relationship ade, which involves requests and
responses between brothers and sisters based on appeal, is, along with
assertion, a major interactional strategy among the Kaluli. Children learn the
content and meaning of this term in the course of specific interactions;
language events are the medium of learning and the medium of expression for
the ade relationship. The patterning of certain language routines repeatedly
engaged in by children and caregivers and the sociocultural knowledge ac­
quired and actualized in the course of such routines have been examined in a
variety of other cultural settings as well (20, 93, 135; see also 95).
Language socialization studies provide a dimension of insight often un­
derdeveloped in the more traditional studies discussed above. In the latter,
culture is for the most part given, and its norms, values, beliefs, and practices
are "placed" into members' heads. While these studies go beyond the modes-
 84 PELISSIER

of-thought question "How do exotic others think?" to ask "How do they come
to think that way?," the process for the most part is one-way, moving from
culture to passive individual.
In providing a more explicit place for active participants, the research on
language and socialization adds to the insights provided by earlier approaches
to socialization. As Schieffelin & Ochs state, "the child or the novice (in the
case of older individuals) is not a passive recipient of sociocultural knowledge
but rather an active contributor to the meaning and outcome of interactions
with other members of a social group" (114, p. 165). This approach builds on
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the perspectives of social-construction theorists such as Berger & Luckmann

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(4), among others, and on those of students of face-to-face interaction (80,81;

see 111, 113). The emphasis is on actual interactions. What caregivers do by
way of instruction, including verbal instruction, modeling, and sanctions, is
no more important than the contributions and interpretations of children and
novices; the two, in fact, are inseparable. This approach is similar to the
interactional approach of Mehan & Griffin (88), which allows us to examine
not only the activities of agents of socialization (and to extend the concept of
agent to include others besides "teachers"), but also those of the socialized.
Together, these approaches represent a move away from "one-way" con­
ceptions of socialization to conceptions that emphasize a dialectic between
agency and structure.

COMMUNICATION STYLE

Studies of the social organization of language and communication-of how

different cultural groups go about the business of interacting and of thinking
about and acquiring knowledge-have not been restricted to traditional cul­
tures but have also focused on ethnic and class minorities in Western cultures.
Particular emphasis has been placed on schooling, since there may be differ­
ences between patterns of language use favored in school settings and those
learned at home (14). Such cultural incongruities between home/community
and school may be connected with the often poor school performance of
minority and working-class students.
The predicament of speakers of different languages has prompted much
work on the topic of bilingual education 027-130). My main concern in this
section, however, is with research conducted on the less obvious variations
among English speakers, or on what may be referred to as '�invisible"
(because of its taken for granted nature) culture (101).
Mehan (86, 87) notes the importance of rules for the organization of
communication, and discusses their connection with the content of com­
munication. In his analyses of the interactions between students and teachers
in elementary school classrooms, he derives not only the structures of lessons
 TEACHING & LEARNING 85

but also the ways these structures are enacted in interaction. In so doing, he
makes the crucial point that students must master both content and the
interactional rules for discussing content-they have to know when to speak
and how to formulate their utterances. This ability is what Hymes (51) and
others refer to as communicative competence, the ability to use language in
socially appropriate manners. In this perspective, we find that content and
process are inseparable.
We find also that groups that have different communicative competen­
cies-that organize their communication in ways different from those pre­
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valent in the mainstream school system in the West-may have trouble

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succeeding in the context of mainstream classrooms. Philips ( l 00, 101)

analyzed this phenomenon with regard to one group of Native Americans (see
also 22, 55). She found that participant structures (the organization of talk and
interaction, including the particular uses of verbal and nonverbal channels of
communication) among the Warm Springs Indians in Oregon differ in fun­
damental ways from those prevalent in the Anglo school system. The differ­
ences are major, concerning what is considered socially appropriate behavior
(e.g. how one takes a tum at talk, who is the leader). It is because of these
differences, Philips claims, that Native Americans are perceived as "silent" or
unintelligent. This perception, or social fact, moreover, is a negotiated social
reality; it is not something that resides in the Native Americans and their
culture or something that resides in the Anglo teachers and theirs, but rather is
an artifact of the interaction between them in a particular setting.
Philips's work was followed up by Erickson & Mohatt (27), who examined
differences between two classrooms of Odawa students in Ontario, one with a
Native teacher, the other with an Anglo teacher. They noted differences that
included forms of address, the use of different kinds of talk (orders, calling
out, questioning), and the use of space. Significantly, over the course of
the school year the Anglo teacher began to interact in more Native ways, pro­
ducing "mixed forms," or combinations of Native and Anglo interactional
styles.
In another cultural setting, members of the Kamehameha Early Education
Program compared the organization of talk in reading groups in school with
that in the homes of Native Hawaiian students in an attempt to understand the
problems they were having on tests of reading comprehension (l, 2). At
home, Hawaiians engage in a form of talk called "talk story," characterized
by overlapping speech, in which turns at talk are not allocated by a leader.
This differs from the way talk is organized in reading group lessons in school,
in which a teacher allocates turns at talk, and in which overlapping speech is
negatively sanctioned. In a similar vein, Heath (44, 45), working in the
southern United States, found differences in patterns of language use among
white working-class, black working-class, and black and white mainstream
 86 PELISSIER

populations; again, the patterns of language use expected in mainstream

educational and work institutions differed from those practiced in the two
working-class communities (see reference 12 for further discussion of these
works).
Research on communicative style can help to dispel some of the stereotypes
of nonmainstream groups, stereotypes that often draw on the kind of di­
chotomies discussed above, in the section on modes of thought. Many of the
dichotomies earlier used to discuss cultural others (although still used in some
quarters) have been repatriated, as it were, and applied to various groups in
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Western culture. Particularly salient here are dichotomies between abstract

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1991.20:75-95. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

and concrete thought and elaborated and restricted speech codes.

Because of the importance of school achievement in Western society, a
major issue in much of the work on communication style is power. As Hymes
put it, "Everything depends, not on the presence of variation in speech-there
is always that-but on whether and to what extent, difference is invested with
social meaning" (51, p. xxv). In many cases, he claims, the issue is not
deprivation but repression (5 1). Difference per se, then, is not automatically a
problem but provides the opportunity to create one (23, 26, 52).
Questions of agency are also present in this literature. Erickson (23, 25),
for example, refers to Piestrup's (102) work, which demonstrated that the
same linguistic difference between teacher and students made a big (and
negative) difference in some classrooms over the course of the school year,
while in others the difference diminished and became less of an issue. The key
factor here was whether or not the differences were made salient by the
teacher. Students, although clearly in asymmetrical relationships with their
teachers, are nevertheless active participants in the structuring of this relation­
ship (see also 60). Again, however, those in power-usually not the stu­
dents-define what is happening and what it means (25). It is they who apply
such labels as deprivation, stupidity, and so on.
Overall, the approach taken in studies of communicative style is in­
teractional. Many of these studies may be characterized (after Mehan) as
"constitutive" ethnographies, insofar as they focus on "the structuring of
structure" (86)--{)n how social facts, or structures, are constructed, actual­
ized, and transformed in ordinary day-to-day activity, particularly in face-to­
face interaction (81). Studies of communicative style, then, do not suffer from
determinism, but rather illustrate a "practice" approach that takes into con­
sideration the relationships between structure and agency.

MODES OF EDUCATION

As indicated above, the organization of communication is integral to the

organization of learning and teaching, both of which are in tum embedded in
 TEACHING & LEARNING 87

larger cultural contexts. Indeed, many authors have looked to broad cultural
contexts and structures to explain phenomena supposedly characteristic of
certain kinds of learning and teaching contexts, such as the relative absence of
questioning. Ochs's (94) observations about questioning in Samoa between
children and their caretakers provide a good example. The relative lack of
questioning is connected by Ochs with Samoan notions of status: Low-status
people (including children) are supposed to listen, not ask questions. To ask
questions is to act above one's station, thereby challenging the statuses of
both listener and speaker (see also 126). Borofsky (7) makes a similar point
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about Pukapukans. Status rivalry, a major theme in Polynesian politics and

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1991.20:75-95. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

social organization (38), renders it inappropriate to acknowledge ignorance

publicly. To ask a lot of questions is to imply a lack of knowledge, which is a
form of losing face.
Other researchers working in what may be called "traditional" societies
have also pointed to the connections between communication style and larger
social-structural patterns. Philips's (101) work with the Warm Springs Indians
provides a good example, as does the Scollons' (114a) work among Native
Alaskans. In both cases-and in contrast to the case of Polynesian society­
the organization of communication is related to the egalitarian nature of the
cultures in question. The connections between social structures in large-scale
industrial societies and what happens in interaction (including educational
interchanges) continue to be of concern in work on the ethnography of
communication (42a, 53; F. Erickson, personal communication).
Another approach in the anthropology of teaching and learning has entailed
a focus on the general characteristics of and differences between modes of
education, rather than on the cultural embeddedness of certain organizations
of interaction and knowledge acquisition. Borofsky (7) provides a bridge
between these two approaches: He connects the relative lack of questioning in
Pukapukan learning and teaching events to Polynesian status rivalry but also
identifies these events as "informal" educational events in which questioning
is infrequent because the context of learning is tied to the doing of the activity
and the answers to questions are immediately available in the environment
(see also 117).
The interest in modes of education has focused to a large extent on the
characteristics of and·differences between school-based and non-school-based
teaching and learning. These two contexts have often been dichotomized as
"formal" and "informal" education, based on a number of characteristics
supposedly unique to each form, including, for example, the use of language
vs activity as the major vehicle of instruction, and the creative vs conservative
outcomes of "formal" vs "informal" teaching and learning. In short, "formal"
education is characterized by deliberate teaching and learning, taking place in
contexts removed from occasions of use and emphasizing the acquisition of
 88 PELISSIER

principles and skills that can be generalized across contexts. "Informal"

education, in contrast, is characterized as something that does not happen
deliberately but rather in the course of activity, emphasizing concrete skills
and information that usually do not involve general principles or the ability to
generalize across contexts (13,66,117; see also reference 125 for an empha­
sis on an incidental-intentional dichotomy as opposed to a formal-informal
one).
Some examples of what is typically taken to be "informal" learning may be
found in the socialization studies discussed above. Learning how to be a
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Samoan, or a Tikopean, or a Talensi happens, for the most part, in the course
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1991.20:75-95. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

of everyday activity. People do not learn how to build canoes, for instance, in
a course on canoe building in which they are lectured about the principles of
canoe construction; rather, they learn it experientially, by helping out in the
building of a canoe intended for use, not for purposes of education. Skills,
then, as well as norms and roles, are learned in the doing.
Recent studies of apprenticeship-an often-used example of "informal"
education-point to the conceptual confusions embedded in the usual dis­
tinctions made between "formal" and "informal" education and are the focus
of my discussion in this section. In his analysis of learning how to be a
blacksmith among the Kpelle in Gbarngasuakwelle, Lancy (63) claims that
there are "formal" as well as "informal" aspects to the processes involved.
"Formal" aspects of "informal" education are also evident in Micronesian
navigation training (35). Although significant parts of navigation training take
place at sea, during actual navigational events, perhaps equally large parts
occur in what might look like a Micronesian version of a classroom: Appren­
tice navigators gather in a hut (a separate location) and sit in a circle around
stones that represent the stars in the sky (learning about things not im­
mediately present) (see also 75, 76).
In her work on apprenticeship among Liberian tailors, Lave (66; J. Lave, in
preparation) discusses some of the problems from which much work on
"formal" and "informal" education suffers. She points out that much of the
research on "informal" education brings with it a Western focus on the
importance of teachers, and that in the process we neglect learning. In fact,
those who study apprenticeship have often claimed that little active teaching
occurs (69). In the case of Liberian tailors, moreover, a focus on learning
results in a portrait of "informal" education in which learning is highly
structured (although not in pedagogical ways), in which there are sequences in
the learning process, and in which skills are acquired actively, rather than in a
passive,. purely imitative and haphazard way.
Sequences in the learning process for tailors do not reproduce production
sequences (1. Lave, in preparation; 69). Although apprentices and master
tailors are in a formal contractual relationship, it is not teaching and learning
 TEACHING & LEARNING 89

that organize activity, but the activity of tailoring that organizes teaching and
learning (J. Lave, in preparation). The sequence of articles tailors learn to
construct moves from the less complicated (and less socially important) to the
more complicated (and more socially loaded). Within each article, the se­
quence moves from the outside in, from the finishing touches to the beginning
of production (e.g. tailors learn to sew hems and buttons on trousers before
they learn to cut trousers out). This learning sequence reflects the concerns of
tailoring, rather than educational concerns: A mistake made when hemming
trousers is less costly than one made when cutting them out. The impact of
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economic and other concerns-in other words, the cost of error, whether
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1991.20:75-95. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

financial or social-on the sequence of learning is clear in other apprentice­

ship contexts (13, 35, 50, 56). In all cases, it seems that activity provides
opportunities for learning, rather than the reverse.
The less formalized apprenticeship of midwifery in Yucatan (56) provides
further evidence of these points. As with tailoring, apprentice midwives in
Yucatan do not begin by learning how to deal with a birth from beginning to
end; rather, they start with participatio n in the easier and more routine
activities of labor support and prenatal massage, and only gradually begin to
participate in the more difficult and cultu ral ly significant activities, such as
delivery of the placenta. It is the business of doing a birth that organizes the
opportunities to learn; the safety benefits of such an organization are also
clear.
In my own research (in preparation) on welfare rights groups (groups that
train members to be advocates for one another in confronting the welfare
bureaucracy), I have found that apprentice advocates begin by participating in
relatively easy tasks that do not involve the bureaucracy directly, such as
answering questions over the phone for other welfare recipients. Only later do
they participate in official hearings at the welfare office. Not only do the
hearings require a great deal of knowledge (in terms of both policy and
strategy), but there is also a great deal more at s take-e.g. the quantity of
foodstamps or rent money that the plaintiff will get.
One often-mentioned contrast between "formal" and "informal" modes of
teaching and learning concerns the use of language-specifically, the claim
that in "formal" educational settings language is the major vehicle of instruc­
tion, while in "informal" settings activity is the major vehicle (the focus is on
doing the activity, rather than on talking about it). Jordan (56) counters this
stereotype by pointing to the important role of talk in midwifery practice­
most notably, the role of storytelling in diagnostic and decision-making
events. Learning to talk like a midwife is part of what learning to be a midwife
is all about; learning the skills and learning how to act like a midwife are
inseparable. Similarly, apprentice advocates in welfare rights groups learn not
just welfare policy but also attitudes and ideologies; they learn how to act like
 90 PELISSIER

advocates. Joint interpretation of policy and decision-making regarding what

kinds of actions to take in particular cases entail a great deal of storytelling.
The difference, according to Lave & Wenger, is one between "talking about a
practice and talking within it" (69, p. 30).
The importance of learning an identity, in addition to skills, is underscored
by Lave & Wenger (69) in their discussion of Legitimate Peripheral Participa­
tion (LPP), which they use as a conceptual framework for gaining insight into
how people become full participants in, and in the process participate in
reproducing, communities of practice. In this framework, learning js not so
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much acquiring particular skills as it is increasing participation in a commun­

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1991.20:75-95. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

ity of practitioners; one moves from peripheral to full participant. The concept
of LPP provides a shift in focus "from the individual as learner to learning as
participation in the social world, and from the concept of cognitive process to
the more encompassing view of social activity" (69, p. 4). In focusing on the
various avenues and structures of participation and access in any given
community of practice, LPP offers a framework for looking at all forms of
learning, and for moving beyond dichotomies such as "formal" and "in­
formal".
The work conducted on apprenticeship and the concept of LPP serve to
reinforce the importance not only of activity, but of agency as well. As
opposed to a conception in which skills and identities move into people's
heads, here we have a conception in which people move into communities of
practice. Not only dichotomies between "formal" and "informal" education,
then, but also those between agency and structure may be avoided.

CONCLUSION

One goal of this review has been to underscore the need to rethink some of the
dichotomies we continue to use in discussions of teaching and learning, not
only because of the ethnocentrism and hierarchy often hidden (or not hidden)
within them, but also because they are often inaccurate. One has to wonder
about portrayals of people who learn in concrete contexts of activity ("in­
formal" education) and consequently exhibit an inability to form generaliza­
tions ("concrete" thought). The dichotomies described in the sections above
on modes of thought, cross-cultural cognition, and modes of education seem
to reinforce each other in ways that clearly do not benefit the subjects of such
characterizations.
The concept of Legitimate Peripheral Participation, with its emphasis on
communities of practice, provides an opportunity to move beyond many of
the static and hierarchical dichotomies discussed throughout this review,
including those attending the distinction between concrete "primitive" and
abstract "civilized" thought, as well as those attending the division between
 TEACHING & LEARNING 91

"formal" and "informal" education. Its emphasis on practice, activity, and

identity speaks likewise to issues of human action and agency. Such an
approach builds on the recent trend toward investigations of practice and
agency in studies of socialization and cross-cultural and everyday cognition.
As with work on communicative style, the concept of LPP avoids structural
determinism.
In focusing on both the increasing participation in, and the reproduction of,
communities of practice-and these are coupled phenomena-LPP also ad­
dresses a key concern of the anthropology of learning and teaching, namely,
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the production and reproduction of culture and society. Although less explicit
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1991.20:75-95. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

in discussions of modes of thought and cognition than in discussions of

socialization, communicative style, and modes of education, the concern with
the reproduction of culture and society is deeply embedded in the anthropolo­
gy of learning and teaching, as it is in anthropology as a whole. The
movements in the anthropology of teaching and learning towards the con­
sideration of practice, activity, and agency in the context of structure contrib­
ute to this continuing endeavor.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank the following individuals for their comments and insights: Eufracio
Abaya, Doug Campbell, Michael Ennis-McMillan, Fred Erickson, Rita Gal­
lin, Peg Graham, Jean Lave, and Ann Millard. A very special thanks to Susan
Irwin.

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