What is coming of age in Samoa by Margaret Mead about?
Coming of Age in Samoa is a book by American anthropologist Margaret Mead based upon her research and study of youth – primarily adolescent girls – on the island of Ta'u in the Samoan Islands. The book details the sexual life of teenagers in Samoan society in the early 20th century,...
Who challenged Mead's findings in coming of age in Samoa?
In 1983, five years after Margaret Mead's death, Harvard University Press published a book by Derek Freeman (1916–2001), an anthropology professor at the Australian National University, which challenged the accuracy of Mead's findings in Coming of Age in Samoa.
What are the best books about Margaret Mead and Samoa?
The Samoa Reader: Anthropologists take stock. University Press of America. ISBN 0-8191-7720-2. Feinberg, Richard (1988). "Margaret Mead and Samoa: Coming of Age in fact and fiction". American Anthropologist. 90 (3): 656–663. doi: 10.1525/aa.1988.90.3.02a00080. Freeman, Derek (1998).
Did Freeman overestimate the violence of Margaret Mead's Samoan Research?
Other researchers have argued that he overemphasized the violent and competitive aspects of Samoan life, quoted Mead selectively, and studied a different part of Samoa at a later time period. Freeman subsequently published other books and articles on Mead's Samoan researches, most notably The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead (1999).
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What did Mead conclude about the experience of adolescence in Samoa?
Mead concluded that the passage from childhood to adulthood (adolescence) in Samoa was a smooth transition and not marked by the emotional or psychological distress, anxiety, or confusion seen in the United States.
What did Margaret Mead do in the 1930s?
During the summer of 1930, Mead and Fortune did fieldwork among the Omaha Native American people. Mead realized from this first experience studying a non-Oceanic culture that there was a connection between the anthropological approach used to study a culture and the characteristics of the culture studied.
Who wrote Coming of Age in Samoa?
Margaret MeadComing of Age in Samoa / AuthorMargaret Mead wrote more than 20 books. Her first book, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928; new ed., 2001) was a best seller.
When did Derek Freeman go to Samoa?
In 1966-67 Freeman conducted fieldwork in Samoa, trying to find Mead's original informants, and while visiting the community where Mead had worked he experienced another breakdown.
What was Margaret Mead best known for?
Margaret Mead was an American anthropologist best known for her studies of the peoples of Oceania. She also commented on a wide array of societal issues, such as women's rights, nuclear proliferation, race relations, environmental pollution, and world hunger.
What was Margaret Mead's theory?
Mead's famous theory of imprinting found that children learn by watching adult behavior. A decade later, Mead qualified her nature vs. nurture stance somewhat in Male and Female (1949), in which she analyzed the ways in which motherhood serves to reinforce male and female roles in all societies.
Why did Margaret Mead study in Samoa?
In 1925, Margaret Mead journeyed to the South Pacific territory of American Samoa. She sought to discover whether adolescence was a universally traumatic and stressful time due to biological factors or whether the experience of adolescence depended on one's cultural upbringing.
Why is Coming of Age in Samoa important?
A person coming of age is very vital to how they develop their personal characteristics. In opposition to the Samoan transition, the process of becoming a woman in Western society is marked by responsibilities and social pressure, usually meaning that it is quite a turbulent period for a girl to go through.
How old is coming of age?
Definitions of Coming of Age Acquiring a legally significant age (in the United States, either 18 or 21) Confirming an individual as a responsible adult within a religious community. Experiencing a moment of epiphany in which childhood is set aside. Puberty (or, in some cases, loss of virginity)
What did Derek Freeman discover?
While in the islands, Freeman stated that he discovered that Mead was wrong about Samoan culture and felt responsible for refuting her work, thus establishing a linear progression in his critique of Mead from his own first trip to the islands to the eventual publication, some four decades later, of Margaret Mead and ...
What was the purpose of Mead's research and what was her theory about the cause of adolescent crisis?
She sought to discover whether adolescence was a universally traumatic and stressful time due to biological factors or whether the experience of adolescence depended on one's cultural upbringing.
What books did Margaret Mead write?
Coming of Age in Samoa1928Ruth Benedict1974Sex and Temperam...1935Male and Female: A Study of th...1949Cultura y Compromi...1970Sex and Temperam... in Three Pr...1935Margaret Mead/Books
Was Margaret Mead a feminist?
Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist, a pioneer of the feminist movement in America, an important popularizer of anthropology, and one of the most prominent public intellectuals of her time.
Where did Mead stay in Samoa?
This notebook contains material from her stay in Fitiuta, a village at the eastern end of Ta'u island, about eight miles away from her home base in Luma, on the west coast. Her notes here refer primarily to the material culture of the village, including a diagram of a “porch built out at end of house.”
Where did Margaret Mead travel to?
In 1925, Margaret Mead journeyed to the South Pacific territory of American Samoa. She sought to discover whether adolescence was a universally traumatic and stressful time due to biological factors or whether the experience of adolescence depended on one's cultural upbringing. After spending about nine months observing and interviewing Samoans, ...
What is the name of the book that Mead published in?
Her findings were published in Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), a vivid, descriptive account of Samoan adolescent life that became tremendously popular. It was published in more than a dozen editions in a variety of languages and made Mead famous.
What is the name of the book that Mead wrote about Samoan culture?
In addition to her popular volume on Samoan adolescence, Mead wrote a more technical account of Samoan culture entitled The Social Organization of Manu'a (1930).
Why is adolescence not stressful for girls in Samoa?
After spending about nine months observing and interviewing Samoans, as well as administering psychological tests, Mead concluded that adolescence was not a stressful time for girls in Samoa because Samoan cultural patterns were very different from those in the United States. Her findings were published in Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), a vivid, ...
Why did Mead revise her manuscript?
At the suggestion of her publisher, William Morrow, Mead revised her original manuscript to focus on the implications of her findings for American child-rearing and education and to urge the creation of an educational system that would prepare American youth for life in a society filled with abundant choices.
Who wrote the letter to Mead?
Shortly before Mead departed for Samoa, Franz Boas wrote her a letter with final instructions on her research project. She was to examine “the psychological attitude of the individual under the pressure of the general pattern of culture” and discover whether or not Samoan adolescent girls possessed the same “rebellious spirit” found in American adolescents. He warned her not to spend too much time studying Samoan culture generally at the expense of this particular problem.
How many times was Margaret Mead married?
Mead was married three times. After a six-year engagement, she married her first husband (1923–1928) American Luther Cressman, a theology student at the time who eventually became an anthropologist. Between 1925 and 1926 she was in Samoa returning wherefrom on the boat she met Reo Fortune, a New Zealander headed to Cambridge, England, to study psychology. They were married in 1928, after Mead's divorce from Cressman. Mead dismissively characterized her union with her first husband as "my student marriage" in her 1972 autobiography Blackberry Winter, a sobriquet with which Cressman took vigorous issue. Mead's third and longest-lasting marriage (1936–1950) was to the British anthropologist Gregory Bateson, with whom she had a daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, who would also become an anthropologist.
Where was Margaret Mead born?
Margaret Mead, the first of five children, was born in Philadelphia , but raised in nearby Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Her father, Edward Sherwood Mead, was a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and her mother, Emily (née Fogg) Mead, was a sociologist who studied Italian immigrants. Her sister Katharine (1906–1907) died at the age of nine months. This was a traumatic event for Mead, who had named the girl, and thoughts of her lost sister permeated her daydreams for many years. Her family moved frequently, so her early education was directed by her grandmother until, at age 11, she was enrolled by her family at Buckingham Friends School in Lahaska, Pennsylvania. Her family owned the Longland farm from 1912 to 1926. Born into a family of various religious outlooks, she searched for a form of religion that gave an expression of the faith that she had been formally acquainted with, Christianity. In doing so, she found the rituals of the United States Episcopal Church to fit the expression of religion she was seeking. Mead studied one year, 1919, at DePauw University, then transferred to Barnard College .
What did Mead find about marriage?
Mead also found that marriage is regarded as a social and economic arrangement where wealth, rank, and job skills of the husband and wife are taken into consideration.
What is the significance of the Samoan girl?
In the foreword to Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead's advisor, Franz Boas, wrote of its significance: Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, very good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal.
What was Margaret Mead's first book?
The first, released in 1959, An Interview With Margaret Mead, explored the topics of morals and anthropology. In 1971, she was included in a compilation of talks by prominent women, But the Women Rose, Vol.2: Voices of Women in American History. She is credited with the term " semiotics ", making it a noun.
Why was Mead's work on women and men criticized by Betty Friedan?
Despite its feminist roots, Mead's work on women and men was also criticized by Betty Friedan on the basis that it contributes to infantilizing women.
When was Mead a key participant at the UN?
In 1976, Mead was a key participant at UN Habitat I, the first UN forum on human settlements.
Why was Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa so popular?
Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa purported to provide ethnographic proof that nurture was the dominant factor in child development and adolescence . Subtitled A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization, Mead’s book was widely read, in part perhaps because it is written, according to one commentator, “in ridiculously heightened prose, more like a Cosmopolitan article than an essay.” According to a recent account:
What did Freeman prove about Margaret Mead?
Eventually, Freeman obtained a sworn confession from one of Mead’s informants and proved that, as I for one had always suspected, it was all too good to be true. Margaret Mead had been told what she wanted to hear by her less than trustworthy Samoan informants, who were embarrassed by her leading questions about topics never normally mentioned by young girls—least of all to important American ladies. He devastatingly demonstrated that Margaret Mead had not written an ethnographic account, but had published a work of social science fiction, albeit one that became enormously influential in modern American culture:
What is the coming of age in Samoa?
Coming of Age in Samoa was a sensation—not an overnight one, but it crept up on and conquered American hearts... A lot of Americans read it as a straightforward utopia, encouraged in doing so by a long tradition of viewing Polynesian islanders as happy, uncomplicated, semi-naked sensualists, as well as by William Morrow’s dust-jacket depicting Polynesian lovers holding hands under a palm tree (left), and by Mead’s unusually lyrical prose. Some anthropologists read it the same way, disapprovingly. E. E. Evans-Pritchard spoke dismissively of the new “wind-rustling-in-the-palm-trees” school of anthropology. His older colleague, A. C. Haddon grumbled at the substitution of the “lady novelist” for the professional ethnographer.
Who was the author who portrayed Samoa as one of the most amiable, least contentious, and?
His older colleague, A. C. Haddon grumbled at the substitution of the “lady novelist” for the professional ethnographer. Mead portrayed the Samoans as “one of the most amiable, least contentious, and most peaceful peoples in the world,” adding that “In Samoa love between the sexes is a light and pleasant dance,” and that male sexuality “is ...
Did Mead ever interview a boy?
On the basis of a few dozen interviews with 25 adolescent girls carried out in the back room of a US Navy dispensary—there is no evidence she ever interviewed a boy—and a few touristic excursions around the islands, Mead purported to give an authoritative account of a complete culture, which she described as "a precious permanent possession of mankind… Forever true because no truer picture could be made," adding portentously, "true to the state of human behavior as it was in the mid 1920s; true to our hopes and fears for the future of the world."
Did Margaret Mead write an ethnographic account?
He devastatingly demonstrated that Margaret Mead had not written an ethnographic account, but had published a work of social science fiction, albeit one that became enormously influential in modern American culture: We are dealing … with one of the most remarkable events in the intellectual history of the 20th century.
Was Margaret Mead hoaxed?
We are dealing … with one of the most remarkable events in the intellectual history of the 20th century. Margaret Mead, the historical evidence demonstrates, was comprehensively hoaxed by her Samoan informants, and then, in her turn by convincing … others of the “genuineness” of her account of Samoa, she unwittingly misinformed and misled the entire anthropological establishment.
When did Margaret Mead graduate from Columbia University?
Margaret Mead entered DePauw University in 1919, transferred to Barnard College a year later, and graduated from there in 1923. She then entered the graduate school of Columbia University, where she received an M.A. in 1924 and a Ph.D. in 1929.
Who is Margaret Mead?
Margaret Mead, (born December 16, 1901, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died November 15, 1978, New York, New York), American anthropologist whose great fame owed as much to the force of her personality and her outspokenness as it did to the quality of her scientific work. Top Questions.
How many books did Margaret Mead write?
Margaret Mead wrote more than 20 books. Her first book, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928; new ed., 2001) was a best seller.
What was Margaret Mead's greatest achievement?
Margaret Mead was an American anthropologist best known for her studies of the peoples of Oceania. She also commented on a wide array of societal issues, such as women’s rights, nuclear proliferation, race relations, environmental pollution, and world hunger.
What is the significance of Mead's work?
As an anthropologist, Mead was best known for her studies of the nonliterate peoples of Oceania, especially with regard to various aspects of psychology and culture —the cultural conditioning of sexual behaviour, natural character, and culture change.
What was Margaret Mead's highest civilian award?
In 1979 she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honour. Margaret Mead.
Who were the three anthropologists who arrived in Sydney in 1933?
Anthropologists (from left) Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead, and Reo Fortune arriving in Sydney after completing fieldwork in New Guinea, 1933.
Margaret Mead and Samoa, by Derek Freeman
Derek Freeman's refutation of one of the heroes of American academia has incited responses from many angry social scientists. The…
The Commentary Magazine Podcast is Coming to Palm Beach
After depicting Margaret Mead’s Samoa, Freeman, who spent time in Western Samoa as a graduate student in the 1940’s and again years later, proceeds to erase her negative instance from the anthropological ledger.
Who published Margaret Mead and Samoa?
In 1983, five years after Mead had died, Derek Freeman – a New Zealand anthropologist who lived in Samoa – published Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, in which he challenged all of Mead's major findings.
What was the transition from childhood to adulthood in Samoa?
Mead concluded that the passage from childhood to adulthood (adolescence) in Samoa was a smooth transition and not marked by the emotional or psychological distress, anxiety, or confusion seen in the United States.
What did Derek Freeman say about Samoan culture?
In the 1980s, Derek Freeman contested many of Mead's claims, and argued that she was hoaxed into counterfactually believing that Samoan culture had more relaxed sexual norms than Western culture. However, the anthropology community on the whole has rejected Freeman's claims, concluding that Freeman cherry-picked his data, and misrepresented both Mead's research and the interviews that he conducted. Mead's field work for "Coming of Age" was also scrutinized, and major discrepancies found between her published statements and her field data. Samoans themselves tend to be critical of what Mead wrote of their culture, especially her claim that adolescent promiscuity was socially acceptable in Samoa in the 1920s.
What is the significance of the extended family in Samoa?
The head man of the household has ultimate authority over the group. Mead describes how the extended family provides security and safety for Samoan children. Children are likely to be near relatives no matter where they are, and any child that is missing will be found quite rapidly. The household also provides freedom for children including girls. According to Mead, if a girl is unhappy with the particular relatives she happens to live with, she can always simply move to a different home within the same household. Mead also describes the various and fairly complex status relations which are a combination of factors such as role in the household, the household's status within the village, the age of the individual, etc. There are also many rules of etiquette for requesting and granting favors. : 39–58
What is the book "Coming of Age in Samoa" about?
Coming of Age in Samoa is a book by American anthropologist Margaret Mead based upon her research and study of youth – primarily adolescent girls – on the island of Ta'u in the Samoan Islands. The book details the sexual life of teenagers in Samoan society in the early 20th century, and theorizes that culture has a leading influence on psychosexual ...
Why was Mead's coming of age criticized?
Mead was criticized for not separating her personal speculation and opinions from her ethnographic description of Samoan life and for making sweeping generalizations based on a relatively short period of study.
What were Mead's original informants?
Second, Freeman's critics point out that, by the time he arrived on the scene, Mead's original informants were old women, grandmothers, and had converted to Christianity, so their testimony to him may not have been accurate. They further argue that Samoan culture had changed considerably in the decades following Mead's original research; after intense missionary activity, many Samoans had come to adopt the same sexual standards as the Americans who were once so shocked by Mead's book. They suggested that such women, in this new context, were unlikely to speak frankly about their adolescent behavior. Further, they suggested that these women might not be as forthright and honest about their sexuality when speaking to an elderly man as they would have been speaking to a woman near their own age.
Overview
Birth, early family life, and education
Personal life
Career and later life
Work
Controversy
Margaret Mead, the first of five children, was born in Philadelphia but raised in nearby Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Her father, Edward Sherwood Mead, was a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and her mother, Emily (née Fogg) Mead, was a sociologist who studied Italian immigrants. Her sister Katharine (1906–1907) died at the age of nine months. That was a traumatic event for Mead, who had named the girl, and thoughts of her …
Legacy
Before departing for Samoa, Mead had a short affair with the linguist Edward Sapir, a close friend of her instructor Ruth Benedict. However, Sapir's conservative stances about marriage and women's roles were unacceptable to Mead, and as Mead left to do field work in Samoa, they separated permanently. Mead received news of Sapir's remarriage while she was living in Samoa. Ther…
Bibliography
During World War II, Mead was executive secretary of the National Research Council's Committee on Food Habits. She was curator of ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1946 to 1969. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1948, the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1975, and the American Philosophical Society in …