Understanding the discourse of early childhood education in coming of age in Samoa

Janez Krek (Author)

Abstract

The apparently readily comprehensible descriptive discourse in Margaret Mead’s famous ethnographic study Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) (CAS) presents a discursive challenge that is greater than one might expect from a book that has gained a wide readership. Through theoretical analysis, and in relation to the notorious Mead/Freeman controversy, we seek to contribute to understanding CAS as discourse, and even more specifically as educational discourse. Three research questions are addressed: How can the account of Samoan culture presented by Mead in CAS be understood as discourse? How can her account of early childhood education be understood in relation to Freeman’s account? Is Mead describing permissive education when describing patterns of early childhood education in Samoa? We argue that Mead produced an overlapping research discourse that has appealed to the wider public because of its cultural suppressed message aimed at the unconscious in culture. Mead’s and Freeman’s contradictory accounts of Samoan cultural patterns in relation to early childhood education can be explained by differences in the perspectives of the social and hierarchical positions of respectable elders and chiefs (Freeman) and of young girls who were caregivers of even younger children (Mead). Finally, we argue that early childhood education in Samoa at that time was clearly not permissive. Young Samoan girls internalized the symbolic Law (Lacan) and were therefore able to act in an authoritative way as caregivers. In the field of education nearly a century later, Mead’s descriptions of early childhood education in Samoa still provide an intricate case study.

Keywords

diskurz;Margaret Mead;kultura;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2020
Typology:	1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:	UL PEF - Faculty of Education
Publisher:	Sage Publications
UDC:	37.01:373.2
COBISS:	12784969
ISSN:	2158-2440
Views:	402
Downloads:	75
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
Metadata:

Other data

Secondary language:	English
Secondary keywords:	early childhood education;authority;vzgoja v ranem otroštvu;avtoriteta;
File type:	application/pdf
Type (COBISS):	Article
Pages:	str. 1-10
Volume:	ǂVol. ǂ10
Issue:	ǂissue ǂ1
Chronology:	2020
DOI:	10.1177/2158244020902083
ID:	11664663