Teaching
The Problems With Coming of Age
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Unit 12
The Influence of Freeman and Mead
In this unit (to accompany SAPIENS podcast S6E6), students go beyond the Mead–Freeman controversy to explore the repercussions of nature versus nurture in U.S. scholarly debates from the 1980s to the 2000s. Students will research how these debates trickled into mass media reporting and affected U.S. society.
Learning Objectives
- Assess how the nature versus nurture debate shaped U.S. society in the 1980s and 1990s.
- Relate how Derek Freeman’s and Margaret Mead’s ideas shaped U.S. views.
Sapiens articles
How Twin Culture Challenges Our Notions of Self
Researchers have long viewed identical twins as mutants, oddballs, and freaks. Bothered by a biased scientific literature, two anthropologists who are also identical twins conduct their own twin ethnographic research.
No, “Racial Genetics” Aren’t Affecting COVID-19 Deaths
The coronavirus pandemic is unequally affecting minority communities in the U.K. and the U.S. Racism, not race, explains the disparity.
Keywords
View All in Disease
![With several people around them, a person wearing an olive green headwrap and white long-sleeved shirt cradles a beige cat who is facing the viewer. They are in a building topped with an ornately decorated gold dome.]()
![Surrounded by an otherwise occupied crowd, a person wearing a white cap and shirt uses gloved hands to work with the finger of a person seated beside them. The second person wears a red-orange dress and holds a baby while a slightly older child stands beside them, looking at the viewer.]()
![Colored in sepia tones, a photo shows a person in a dark headwrap and robes with a walking stick traveling behind a herd of sheep and goats on rocky terrain that rises into a steep hill.]()
![Three people toward the image’s left pull a green net with several lobsters in it from the water while a person wearing a straw hat puts lobsters into a bucket. Two other people look on.]()
![A black-and-white photograph features four people in a discussion, with three casually dressed facing one who has their hair pinned up and wears a white-collared dress. The latter speaks and points to a flyer on the wall.]()
![A photograph features three macaques with red faces and beige fur soaking in hot springs as a person takes their picture with a cellphone.]()
For the Love of Cats in Turkey
On a visit to feline-friendly Turkey, an anthropologist considers what long-standing practices of caring for cats reveal about human societies.
Gene Therapy’s Promise Meets Nigeria’s Sickle Cell Reality
Breakthrough treatments can now cure sickle cell anemia in the U.S. But the pricey therapies will hardly help in Nigeria, where social changes could do more for millions impacted by the disease.
What Ancient Goat Teeth Reveal About Animal Care
Unraveling a mystery around millennia-old goat bones, an archaeologist reflects on the harm people can cause their most cherished animals.
Neighborliness Matters to Your Health
Drawing from cross-cultural research, an anthropologist shows how neighborliness can lessen wealth-based health disparities.
A Native Alaska Community’s Reckoning With Vaccine Hesitancy
An anthropologist’s research with Tlingit communities in Alaska shows they have good reasons to be skeptical about vaccines. They know their history.
Does “Monkeypox” Give Monkeys a Bad Name?
The debate over naming the virus known as monkeypox says a lot about the close—but fraught—relationships between humans and our fellow primates.
View All in post_tag|identity
![Un primer plano muestra una tela tejida en su mayor parte de color rojo, con dibujos diagonales que incorporan detalles en blanco, negro, verde y rosa fuerte.]()
![Una fotografía muestra a dos personas sonriendo y sujetando palillos. Rodeados por la luz del sol, están sentados uno al lado del otro en una mesa al aire libre con platos, ollas y vasos de plástico.]()
![Una multitud reunida, y los de la primera fila extienden la mano para coger pimientos verdes de un escurridor rosa.]()
![Una anciana yagán con cabello negro y gris hasta los hombros viste un suéter morado y se para en un bosque de juncos, sosteniendo juncos en sus manos y debajo de un brazo.]()
![Manos recortadas de una joven madre asiática cortando el pelo de su pequeña hija en casa.]()
![Una persona joven, con cabello oscuro, vistiendo una túnica clara con un cinturón ancho y una vincha extiende sus brazos frente a un gran complejo de un color amarillo oscuro similar a la tierra en la ladera de un cerro.]()
Sentir lo que somos/A’yel jtaleltik
Un antropólogo y escritor de la comunidad tseltal impugna una historia colonialista del ocultamiento y reivindica su identidad, idioma y pueblo.
¿Qué es la antropología lingüística?
Los antropólogos lingüísticos estudian el lenguaje en su contexto, revelando cómo las formas de comunicarse y expresarse de las personas interactúan con la cultura humana, la historia, la política, la identidad y mucho más.
¿Por qué (a algunos) humanos les encantan los chiles?
Un antropólogo recorre los orígenes y los viajes por el mundo de una de sus plantas favoritas.
El pueblo yagán se vuelve a levantar
Los yaganes, una comunidad indígena de Tierra del Fuego, fueron falsamente considerados “extintos” por los europeos y sus descendientes. Ahora los arqueólogos están ayudando a la comunidad contemporánea a documentar las historias antiguas de sus antepasados.
Desenredando la raza del cabello
Una antropóloga se ha propuesto eliminar los prejuicios raciales del estudio del cabello y encontrar las raíces evolutivas de la diversidad del cabello.
Reviviendo a Huaycán —y a la comunidad que la rodea—
Un grupo de jóvenes apasionados, liderados por un antropólogo local, se organiza para proteger a Huaycán de Pariachi, un sitio antiguo de Perú, y educar a su comunidad.
View All in post_tag|genetics
![Una fotografía aérea muestra un gran complejo en forma de arco de ruinas de piedra que muestran los restos de habitaciones rectangulares y lugares de reunión sagrados circulares.]()
![Una fotografía muestra a un grupo de personas con ropas estampadas reunidas en un terreno arenoso con cabañas abovedadas visibles a lo lejos. Delante, dos personas bailan mientras otras animan.]()
Navegando los dilemas éticos de la investigación del ADN humano antiguo
La paleogenómica se ha expandido rápidamente en las dos últimas décadas, encendiendo un acalorado debate sobre la manipulación de los restos. ¿Quién da el consentimiento en nombre de participantes que ya no viven?
¿Surgió realmente la humanidad en un solo lugar?
Nuevas pruebas están llevando a los investigadores a replantearse el origen del Homo sapiens y lo que significa ser humano.
View All in post_tag|economics
![Una imagen en blanco y negro muestra a una mujer que lleva a un bebé en un arnés frontal mirando a dos personas que examinan objetos en el suelo de una cueva bajo una luz de pie.]()
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Decisiones difíciles en la encrucijada de la maternidad y el trabajo de campo
Dos antropólogas que han realizado trabajo de campo estando embarazadas, o recientemente convirtiéndose en madres, comparten con valentía sus experiencias personales y hacen un llamado a crear culturas laborales favorables a la familia que se alineen con la evolución humana.
Cuando los bonos de carbono expulsan a las personas de sus hogares
Se supone que la Iniciativa de Conservación Alto Mayo, en Perú, es una historia de éxito ambiental. Cuando se mira de cerca, está sumida en un conflicto.
Professor Talking Points
- Freeman’s 1983 book Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth criticizes Mead’s work and focuses on the nature versus nurture debate, a hot topic in the 1980s. He calls Mead “anti-biological, anti-evolutionary, and anti-scientific” (Shankman 2001, 181). But as Mead’s supporters pointed out, her decades-long work and research in American Samoa demonstrated her consideration of both biological and cultural attributes in her research. Explore this dichotomy with students.
- Freeman’s supporters pinned Mead as an “archaic and misguided cause of cultural determinism” (Shankman 2001). Discuss how this undermined her reputation as an American icon and pioneering figure in anthropology.
- Mead’s supporters accused Freeman of cherry-picking and missing her main arguments. For example, she had spoken at two major associations on the importance of evolution and genetics in anthropological study (the American Anthropological Association in 1961 and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1976). Discuss with students how Mead was not a staunch cultural determinist despite Freeman’s accusations to the contrary.
- During the 1980s, the nature versus nurture debate spilled into other disciplines. Explore how some used pseudo-scientific claims to support that nature/genetics determines personality and cultural development and how the debate quickly escalated into heated topics about race and sexuality.
- Mead wrote her book for a U.S. audience, and although she believed she portrayed Samoans positively, many Samoans did not agree. After Freeman’s book was published in 1983, Samoans found more public space to criticize Mead. Discuss with students how this created more doubt about the accuracy of Mead’s research.
- Discuss with students how Samoans did not entirely agree with Freeman either, and how many believed he also described their culture incorrectly by portraying it filled with sexual purity, violence, and aggressiveness. In 1987, Freeman and filmmaker Frank Heimans visited Samoa to interview Fa’apua’a, one of Mead’s informants, for the documentary Margaret Mead and Samoa (1988). Freeman attests that Fa’apua’a confessed to hoaxing Mead. But in the on-camera interview, Fa’apua’a appears to have memory problems rather than offer a confession and merely answers questions posed by Galea’i Poumele, a high-ranking Samoan chief who had spoken against Mead in the past.
- In 1999, Freeman published The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research, which claimed Mead was tricked by an informant. Freeman concluded that Mead had been naive and inexperienced, and so it was not entirely her fault that she had produced inaccurate research.
Academic Articles
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Appell, George N. 1984. “Freeman’s Refutation of Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa: The Implication for Anthropological Inquiry.” Eastern Anthropologist 37: 183–214.
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Doughty, Howard. 2011. “Nature, Nurture, and Story-Telling: Part 1. The Freeman–Mead Controversy.” College Quarterly 14 (2).
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Ortiz, Daniel. 1993. “Creating Controversy: Essentialism and Constructivism and the Politics of Gay Identity.” Virginia Law Review 79 (7): 1833–1857.
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Pinker, Steven. 2004. “Why Nature and Nurture Won’t Go Away.” Daedalus 133 (4): 5–17.
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Shankman, Paul. 2001. Margaret Mead. Berghahn, New York.
Student Discussion Questions
- Compare a scientific article from the 1980s with one from the 2000s on the nature versus nurture debate. How has our understanding of the debate grown? What questions have been answered or arisen?
- Why is it important to understand whether nature or nurture plays a larger role in human development? What solutions or explanations are useful once we pinpoint the reasons why we are the way we are?
- In his article “Nature, Nurture and Story-Telling: Part 1. The Freeman–Mead Controversy,” Howard Doughty states the controversy “stands as one of the more important sources of data on the anthropology of anthropology.” What does he mean by this?
- What kind of ethics come into play when using twins for nature versus nurture studies? Are there other effective ways to study this topic without using twins?
Activities
- In the SAPIENS article, “How Twin Culture Challenges Our Notions of Self,” Dona Davis points out that twins were used in nature versus nurture research for much of history. Find an article using twins to explain a cultural or genetic occurrence. Do you think using twins in the study satisfies the questions posed by researchers or is more work needed?
- Watch the documentary Three Identical Strangers in Additional Resources. Based solely on this example, does nature or nurture play a larger role in human development? Discuss your ideas in a small group.
- Had Mead been alive for Freeman’s criticisms of her work, how would she have responded? Write a response, as Mead, to one of Freeman’s works.
Additional Resources
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Article: Kaveh Majlesi, Paul J. Devereux, Petter Lundborg, and Sandra Black’s “The Role of Nature Versus Nurture in Wealth and Other Economic Outcomes and Behaviours”
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Article: Leah McLaren’s “Does Parenting Even Matter?”
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Article: Robin McKie’s “What Makes Us? Nature or Nurture? The DNA Debate Comes Back to Life”
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Documentary: Tim Wardle’s Three Identical Strangers
Unit By
Catherine Torres, Freedom Learning Group
Teaching
The Problems With Coming of Age
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Unit 13
The Anthropology of Sexuality
