Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social Learning Without Formal Education

人类非常善于适应各种自然和社会环境。这在很大程度上是因为他们有向他人学习的能力。此外，人类的适应性是在没有正规教育的情况下产生的。在许多非正规教育的社会中，儿童在很小的时候就能迅速获得关键技能和相关知识。该项目研究在缺乏正规教育的情况下，儿童和青少年从谁那里以及如何学习复杂的技能和知识。这项研究考虑了儿童的年龄、性别、关于儿童在特定年龄能做什么和不能做什么的文化观念以及文化价值观如何影响儿童向谁学习以及如何学习。该研究项目将其研究结果传播给学者，政策制定者和公众，以扩大对儿童学习的不同方式以及如何将这些见解纳入正规教育系统的理解。该项目还为科学文化人类学研究生提供研究和培训机会。 具体来说，这个博士论文项目权衡了关于在文化上不同的邻近社区中没有正规教育的学习的理论辩论，在这种背景下，跨文化婚姻是司空见惯的，而不是罕见的。它解决了这些背景是否影响知识是否从父母传递给孩子，从同伴到同伴，或从无关的教师。它进一步测试学习是否根据内容，共性或教师的声望而有偏见。研究人员使用各种半结构化的父母和孩子的访谈以及行为观察技术，提供系统获得的定性和定量数据，以解决经常抽象的理论争论。在这样做的过程中，该研究项目有助于科学人类学调查的一个关键领域，目前缺乏足够的经验证据来衡量社会学习的替代模型。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Humans are remarkably adept in adapting to diverse natural and social environments. This is made possible in large part by their capacity to learn from others. Furthermore, human adaptation arises in contexts without formal education. In many societies where education arsies informally, children acquire critical skills and relevant knowledge rapidly and beginning at an early age. This project examines from whom and how children and adolescents learn complex skills and knowledge in contexts lacking formal education. The study considers how a child’s age, gender, cultural ideas about what children can and cannot do at particular ages, and cultural values impact from whom and how children learn. The research project disseminates its findings to academics, policymakers, and the general public to expand the understanding of the diverse ways by which children learn and how these insights might be incorporated into formal education systems. The project also provides research and training opportunities to graduate students in scientific cultural anthropology. Specifically, this doctoral dissertation project weighs theoretical debates about learning without formal education in culturally distinct neighboring communities within contexts in which intercultural marriages are commonplace versus rare. It addresses whether these contexts affect whether knowledge is transmitted from parent to child, from peer to peer, or from unrelated teachers. It further tests whether learning is biased according to content, commonness, or to prestige of the teacher. The investigators use a variety of semi-structured parental and child interviews as well as behavioral observational techniques to provide systematically acquired qualitative and quantitative data to address theoretical debates that are frequently abstract. In doing so, the research project contributes to a key area of scientific anthropological inquiry that currently lacks sufficient empirical evidence to weigh among alternative models of social learning.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.