Anthropology opportunity:

We invite you to join us and listen to our African students from Madison High School to share their personal struggles and barriers which they face. They will discuss the challenges of living in a White society, while simultaneously maintaining their own unique cultural identity.  Their stories of destitute & hope and the struggles of balancing completely different cultures from their home and school environments are some of the challenges they face on a daily basis.  This discussion will be facilitated by the Equity & Partnership Department with the support of our community partners.

When: Thursday, April 21, 2016

Time: 4:30-6:00 pm

Where: BESC Boardroom (The District Office near the Rose Quarter)

Learning Capitalist Culture ethnographic write up

Evaluate your ethnographic data, what do you see?  Using ideas and theory from Learning Capitalist Culture as your scaffold, analyze the data and its relationship to the text.  Make sure somewhere in the paper you:

• set the ethnographic present of both North Town High School and the time, location, context of your fieldwork
• address ethical issues
• define, as Foley uses them or your interpretation of, any key concepts, terms or aspects of culture
• analyze your data in a way that facilitates a clear connection to the themes, concepts, or theory found in Learning Capitalist Culture
• detailed, organized data
• textual references

Papers will be completed individually.  Normally in anthropology, we attribute ideas to anthropologists and the date at which they published their study, but have no need for direct quotes.  In this paper, please select relevant selections of the text in support of  your analysis. Please attach or share your compiled data with Ms. O’Neill, as well.

For those of you that missed class on Friday, we watched Fredrick Wiseman's High School. While you watch, take note of the systems, structures, teachers, administrators that shape race: class: and gender at Northeast High School.

We are also working on presentations for Tuesday, here are the groups.  Please read the appropriate section of the text (see link:  #1 being playfully mutually constructed m.o.g.s 114-118 though #5 hip teacher performances; the streetwise dude 128-132).

period 1
#1 Steven, Abbie, Lauren, Caleb
#2 Reegan, Nawaal, Maddy
#3 Kate, Ryan, Maya, Sydney
#4 Emmy, Anisha, Montse
#5 Aubrey, Matt, Margarita, Tristan

period 2
#1 Isabella, Vittoria, Maddy, Margaret, Luke
#2 Ricky, Leah, Sid, Lily, Marin
#3 Emma Root, Mason, Leanne, Eamon
#4 Carrie Ann, Elyse, David, Sophia
#5 Andrea, Emma G, Emma Rhodes, Darius

What you missed while you were at the ACT:

• first, finish reading chapter 3, pages 79-100
• read through the handout on power in society
• watch the first five episodes of People Like Us: Social Class in America 

We will finish watching the film, and discuss the remainder of chapter 3, on Thursday

What your IAs should look like: format

Social and Cultural Anthropology Internal Assessment information here.

Agenda for the day, Thursday March 3:

• discuss talk back papers
• return work with commentary
• start chapter 3 pp. 60-79 discussion questions here

Additional questions for discussion/possible talkback paper topics

• What is the “ideal culture” of NTHS?  What lessons come from the football rituals, the “real culture” of NTHS; i.e the game itself, politics, race, gender...?

• Why did Trujillo quit coaching and leave Northtown? What does this tell us about race and power in Northtown?

• What does Foley believe to be the “cultural significance” of “rituals of inversion” (p.49) like the powder-puff football game?  Are there parallels in other societies we’ve studied, at LHS?

• What is the relationship between inversion rituals and power hierarchies?

• How did “impression management” play out at NTHS? “Those youths who aspired to be socially prominent had to master this cultural contradiction.  In response, they learned to live dual public and private….” (p.62) How does it play out at LHS?

• Foley states“...schools are a site of popular culture practices that stage social inequality.” (p.27)  How does football prove this thesis?

• Other key issues, questions, ideas or themes that come out of “The Great American Football Ritual”?

The goal of a talkback paper is to take an issue and fully explore it - using material from LCC, Not Just a Game, your own experiences, etc.  It’s not a long or overly formal paper; the key is a critical perspective and a willingness to ask questions:  what do I think, why do I think that way, what evidence do I have?  

Look over (as in skim, jump around, read selections that intrigue you closely) the introduction and chapter 1:  from this and the information gleaned in the connections activity:

IN ONE PARAGRAPH: what is the ethnographic present, the time period, location political and ethnic context, of Learning Capitalist Culture? 

from "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work" by Jean Anyon

From the role play: select one question and respond:

• who do you think “won” in real life?  think about your own school, or schools you’ve attended - whose vision of schooling prevailed?
• critique the superintendent’s position - or the position of one of the groups, including your own
• remain in character and write about your children’s future in Central City Schools

From the reading, “...the Hidden Curriculum of Work”:  read and annotate:

• what are the basic differences between the schools?
• are there connections between the role play and this article, where?
• where would you place Lincoln?  
• is this true for all courses or does the teaching style vary (by grade, or by course, etc)?
• have you had additional educational experiences that either support or negate Anyon’s study; when, where?

Remember, our test is on Thursday. You may use your works cited sheet, and remember the paper commentary we discussed in class.

• what's the question asking:  what's going on?
• What aspects of culture connect to the question?
• What groups have we studied that exemplify the question?
• What sources show this?
• Which (the sources) have an ethnographic present of...?
• +/- of source 

Iraq in Fragments Director's commentary and questions for discussion on Tuesday, February 9.

The Invention of Marriage

Other ways of being:  The Male Dancer, Berdache, Hijras

Are you a student with a 504 or IEP?  Please check out this great resource, Bookshare to help you keep up in class.

For finals, please come prepared with your honor killing source packet.  In addition, you have a supplementary packet:  biological roots, gossip, scandal, shame or intrafamily femicide.  Think about the questions that follow each of the sources, mark those you think it important for us to discuss, and be ready to go to the text.

Some interesting articles and graphics from the New York Times recently on the differences between Sunni and Shia Islam, relevant to Guests

Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?

Questions from Abu-Lughod's "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?"

-what are similarities & differences between the post 9/11 context of the article's publication and today's ISIS/Paris/SanBernadino world?

-Why does Abu-Lughod have a problem with "saving" Muslim women?

-What does Abu-Lughod mean by "colonial feminism?"

-What does Abu-Lughod mean by "imaginary geography of West versus East?" (784)

-What does Abu-Lughod mean by "we need to be suspicious when  neat cultural icons are plastered over messier historical and political narratives?" (785)

-What can we learn from this article about the history and politics of veiling in Afghanistan?