PART III OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF EDUCATION

PREPARED BY : LANIE G. CUARESMA

Important Personalities in the Anthropological Foundation of

Education

Franz Boas

Sigmund Freud Eric Erickson Edwar Sapir Ruth Benedict

Margaret Mead Abram Kardiner Ralph Linton

Cora Dubois Clyde Kluckhun Robert Le Vine

 Anthropologists are people that practice anthropology, which is the study of humanity.
Basically they want to figure out what makes humans human. An anthropologist might be
interested in everything from the traditions of a tribe on a remote island to the culture of an
urban community and everything in between. Biological anthropologists spend their time
with fossils and artifacts trying to figure out how early humans might have behaved and what
makes us different from other primates. The following are the Anthropologist who
contributes to the study of human beings and stated their major contribution to field of
Anthropology.

1. Franz Boas - American Anthropologist

Born: July 09, 1858
Died: December 21, 1942
Citizenship: Germany, United States
Major Contribution: he is regarded as both the “Father of Anthropology” & the
“Father of American Anthropology” he was the first to apply scientific method to
anthropology, emphasizing a research-first method of generating theories.
He introduced the idea of Cultural Relativism. Cultural Relativism refers to not judging
to our own standards of what is right and wrong.

2. Sigmund Freud – Austrian Neurologist and Anthropologist

Born: May 06, 1856
Died: September 23, 1936
Major Contribution - well known on his Psychosexual Development Theory and
famously identified Oedipus Complex

Oedipus Complex- the complex of emotions aroused in a young child by an unconscious

sexual desire for the parent of the Opposite sex.

3. Erick Erickson – American Psychologist and Anthropologist

Born: June 15, 1902
Died: May 12, 1994
Citizenship: American German
Major Contribution: known on his Psychosocial Theory proposes that our personality
develops through eight stages, from infancy to old age.
Erikson believed that the coherence of beliefs and values were very important in
structuring personality.
4. Edward Sapir- Jewish Anthropologist
Born: January 26, 1884
Died: February 4, 1939
Citizenship: United States
Major Contribution: - Recognized as one of the first to explore the relationship between
Language and Anthropology. Perceived Language as a tool in shaping the human mind.
Described Language as a verbal symbol of human relation.

5. Ruth Benedict- American Anthropologist

Born: June 5, 1887
Died: September 17, 1948
Citizenship: United States
Major Contribution: well-known contribution was the Configurationalist approach to
Culture and Personality. Like her teacher Franz Boas she believed that culture was the
product of human choices rather than cultural determinism.

6. Margaret Mead- American Cultural Anthropologist

Born: December 16, 1901
Died: November 15, 1978
Citizenship: United States
Major Contribution: - Together with Ruth Benedict she also studied the relationship
among Configuration of Culture, socialization in each particular culture and individual
personality formation. The works explored human development from a cross-cultural
perspective and covered topics on gender rules and childrearing in both American and
foreign cultures

7. Abram Kardiner- American Anthropologist

Born: August 17, 1891
Died: July 20, 1981
Citizenship: United States
Major Contribution: One of the founders of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. His
contribution concerned the interplay of individual personality development and situated
cultures. He developed a psycho-cultural model for the relationship between child-
rearing, housing and decent types in the different cultures.
8. Ralph Linton- American Anthropologist
Born: February 27, 1893
Died: December 24, 1953
Citizenship: United States
Major Contribution - One of the founders of the new basic personality structure theory.
One of Linton's major contributions to anthropology was defining a distinction between
status and role.

9. Cora Dubois- American Cultural Anthropologist

Born: October 26, 1903
Died: April 7, 1991
Citizenship: United States
Major Contribution: - Her research was in psychological anthropology and she became a
leading light in ‘culture and personality’ studies. Cora Dubois stated that individual
variation within a culture exists, and each culture shares the development of a particular
type which might not exist in its individuals.

10. Clyde Kluckhohn- American Anthropologist and Social Theorist

Born: January 11, 1905
Died: July 28, 1960
Citizenship: United States
Major Contribution: best known as social theorist. He is noted for his long-term
ethnographic work about the Navajo which resulted in two books, To the Foot of the
Rainbow (1927) and Beyond the Rainbowb(1933).

11. Robert Le Vine- American Anthropologist

Born: March 27, 1932
Died: June 22, 1941
Citizenship: United States
Major Contribution - He is known for keeping helping to revive psychological
anthropology and has designed studies that can be applied to a wide variety of social
context (Shweder 1999). He also best known for his multidisciplinary and cross-cultural
work on child development.