Coming of Age Video (margaret Meade) only Source Is Video

09/28/05 Anthc101

Coming of Age Video

Margaret Mead is one of the pioneers of Social Anthropology. She was one of

the first trained anthropologists of North America. She was taken under the wing of

another established anthropologist, Franz Boaz, and learned much from him. While she

wanted to work across the Atlantic, Boaz suggested she stay closer to home. Mead chose

Tower Island, one of the Samoan Islands. She set out to study adolescents. She wanted

to learn whether much of the turmoil and hardships experienced by children growing up

was characteristic among all adolescents, or if environment was chiefly responsible. This

goes back to the much debated “Nature or Nurture” theory.

In 1925, at the age of 23 she spent nine months among the Samoan people. She

observed and studied many female teenagers. She learned that for the people of Samoa,

adolescence was a happy and enjoyable time. She learned that the teenagers were very

acceptant of sexual relations. This was unlike the lives of many children growing up in

the United States. She asked many adolescent girls personal questions about boyfriends,

sex, and social behavior. Her work was published in a book titled Coming of Age in

Samoa, in 1928. Her work impacted many people in the United States. It led some to

believe more relaxed child rearing practices are necessary, in attempts to raise less

troubled and stressed children.

While her work shed much light on the lives of people we knew little about, some

were critical of her work. They argued that she spent only six months there, and was not

a long enough time to accurately draw conclusions about the Samoan culture.

In 1928 Meade went with her husband, Reo Fortune, to Manus Island in New

Guinea. She wanted to learn more about the intelligence and thought processes of the

people. Her husband at the same time studied religion. Mead wanted to know if children

could be raised differently than their parents, and how they adopted their value system.

She published a work titled Growing up in New Guinea. She determined that “human

nature is flexible and elastic.” In other words that children’s parents were not solely

responsible for the children’s values.

In 1935 she headed to New Guinea for two years, along with her husband

Fortune. She later encountered Anthropologist Catherine Bateson. Mead wanted to

discover