Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social Learning Without Formal Education

人类非常善于适应不同的自然和社会环境。这在很大程度上是由于他们有向他人学习的能力。此外，人类的适应是在没有正规教育的环境中产生的。在许多以非正式方式进行教育的社会中，儿童在很小的时候就开始迅速掌握关键技能和相关知识。本项目探讨在缺乏正规教育的环境下，儿童和青少年从谁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，以及文化价值观对儿童学习的对象和方式的影响。该研究项目向学术界、政策制定者和公众传播其研究结果，以扩大对儿童各种学习方式的理解，以及如何将这些见解纳入正规教育体系。该项目还为科学文化人类学的研究生提供了研究和培训的机会。具体来说，这个博士论文项目权衡了关于在文化不同的邻近社区中没有接受正规教育的学习的理论争论，在这些社区中，跨文化婚姻是司空见惯的，而不是罕见的。它探讨了这些环境是否会影响知识是否从父母传递给孩子，从同伴传递给同伴，或从无关的老师传递。它进一步测试了学习是否根据内容、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儿童访谈以及行为观察技术来提供系统获得的定性和定量数据，以解决经常抽象的理论辩论。在此过程中，该研究项目为科学人类学调查的一个关键领域做出了贡献，该领域目前缺乏足够的经验证据来权衡各种社会学习模型。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.