Why Don't Anthropologists Like Children?

Few major works in anthropology focus specifically on children, a curious state of affairs given that virtually all contem- porary anthropology is based on the premise that culture is learned, not inherited. Although children have a remarkable and undis- puted capacity for learning generally, and learning culture in particular, in significant measure anthropology has shown little interest in them and their lives. This article examines the reasons for this lamentable lacunae and offers theoretical and empirical reasons for re- pudiating it. Resistance to child-focused scholarship, it is argued, is a byproduct of (1) an impoverished view of cultural learning that overestimates the role adults play and underestimates the contribution that children make to cultural reproduction, and (2) a lack of appreciation of the scope and force of children's culture, particularly in shaping adult culture. The marginalization of children and child- hood, it is proposed, has obscured our understanding of how cultural forms emerge and why they are sustained. Two case studies, ex- ploring North American children's beliefs about social contamination, illustrate these points. (Keywords: anthropology of childhood, children's culture, acquisition of cultural knowledge, race)