Taught Cognitive learning in its Immediate Environments: A Neglected Topic in the Anthropology of Education1

Through ethnographic inquiry into “taught” cognitive learning, the anthropology of learning can provide analytically descriptive narrative accounts of the reflexive calibration between individual teachers and learners as they construct learning environments for each other. Levels of organization comprehended in such study should include individual cognitive functioning, together with the social, political, and cultural factors in which the learning environment is embedded, but it is the pedagogical encounter itself-the adaptive transaction between the individual and the immediate learning environment-that should occupy the center of analytic attention. This requires a shift in research focus since to date the anthropology of education has shown rather little concern for cognitive learning that has been deliberately taught. COGNITIVE LEARNING, LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS, TEACHING, TEACHER-LEARNER INTERACTION, MANIFEST CURRICULUM.

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