Translating Socio-Cultural Anthropology into Education
The collection of projects, concepts and curricula found on this website is the output of an Erasmus+ Project entitled Translating Sociocultural Anthropology into Education. TRANSCA has worked across regional contexts – with all their historical, political, demographic, educational and linguistic differences – to bring anthropological methods and insights to teacher education. In that anthropology is inherently educational, and educational is, at its core, anthropological, we strongly believe that developing this interface will better prepare European teachers and pedagogues to work with children of diverse backgrounds.
The aim of this website is to provide:- information on projects implemented in different European regions that may inspire others to develop their own projects with an interface between anthropology and education.
- a list of anthropology-inspired concepts chosen for their usefulness in thinking through particular educational issues in European societies experiencing marked demographic changes.
- prototypical curricula for teacher education addressing issues of cultural reflexivity.
- Whiteboard Animations that should provide access to social and cultural anthropological thinking .
- Country reports to illustrate the different conditions and implementations for social and cultural anthropological education.
These outputs have been developed through dialogue across regions, critical anthropological reflection and joint conversations with pedagogues, teachers and other practitioners. This site does not aim to deliver simple solutions to complex phenomena. Rather we hope to provide resources to think with and beyond present doxa and practices, to move forward without oversimplifying problems or reifying solutions.
A note on the concepts:
The concepts in this collection have been selected on the basis of their usefulness for reflecting on particular educational questions and issues. We see them first and foremost as concepts that are ‘good to think with’. For example, the concept of community is useful to thinking about how people understand a particular kind of collectivity – smaller than the nation-state and broader than the family or clan. It may also be useful for thinking comparatively about why there is no term for ‘community’ in particular language zones, and this raising awareness of concepts used, the historical and political conditions that have led to this usage, and how different ways of imagining collectivity influence pedagogical ideas and practices.
We are aware that anthropological concepts cannot simply be translated and introduced uncritically into educational spheres. Such topdown exercises are inherently flawed. Rather, we have aimed to create, draw on and further an educationally useful interplay of basic research, ethnography, educational anthropology, and educational studies.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.