Midterm Review Flashcards
What is anthropology?
The study of humans;
The study of people, their origins and their development, whenever and wherever they have been found.
What are the 4 fields of anthropology?
- Biological
- Archeology
- Linguistics
- Cultural
Biological Anthropology
The biological evolution of human beings.
Archeology
The study of prehistoric and historic cultures through the excavation of material remains.
(Anthropological) Linguistics
The scientific study of human communication.
Cultural Anthropology
The scientific study of cultural similarities and differences.
Ethnocentrism
The practice of viewing the cultural features of other societies in terms of their own.
Enculturation
The process by which human infants learn their culture.
Assimilation
The process by which a less dominant culture group changes in ways to blend into the beliefs and practices of the dominant culture.
Acculturation
The process by which a less dominant culture group adjusts of learns to live within a dominant culture while at the same time maintaining their cultural identity.
Cultural Diffusion
The spreading of a thing, an idea, or a behavior pattern from one culture to another.
Cultural Universal
The general cultural traits found in all societies.
Theory
A statement that suggests a relationship among phenomena.
Hypothesis
An educated guess about the relationship among certain variables that guides a research project.
Evolutionism
Developed by Edward Tylor & Lewis Henry Morgan;
Attempted to explain variations in world cultures by the single deductive theory that they all pass through a series of evolutionary stages. :
(The devlopement of a society from a simple to a more complex form)
Barbarism
Middle stage of evolutionism where all cultures evolve from simple to complex systems;
savagery, barbarism and civilization.
Civilization
Last stage of evolutionism;
term used to describe any society that has cities.
Diffusionism
A theory that stated that certain cultural features were invented originally in one or several parts of the world and then spread through the process of diffusion to other cultures.
American Historicism
Headed by Franz Boas;
Insisted on the collection of ethnographic data prior to making cross-cultural generalizations.
Bronislaw Malinowski
Developed an important new way of looking at contemporary cultures known as functionalism.
Functionalism
A theory of social stratification that holds that social inequality exists because it is necessary for the maintenance of society.
Ruth Benedict
Her theories influenced cultural anthropology, especially in the area of culture and personality.
Margaret Mead
Devoted her career to the study of how culture affects the process of growing up.
Clifford Geertz
Examined how the people of culture being studied interpreted their own values and behaviors.
Postmodernism
A school of anthropology that advocates the switch from cultural generalization and laws to description, interpretation, and the search for meaning.
Stages of field research
- Selecting a research problem
- Formulating a research design
- Collecting the data
- Analyzing the data
- Interpreting the data
