Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social Learning Without Formal Education

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.