SYRACUSE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT ANTHROPOLOGY CURRICULUM
Unit I:
Being Human: Unity and Diversity
Time Span:
5 weeks
Disciplinary lens:
Anthropology/Civics
Key Idea(s):
Anthropologists study the differences and similarities in people, examining the physical and
socio-cultural characteristics, focusing on human physical variability and also the social reality
of race. Anthropologists also study how societies change both in the past and the present.
Key concepts:
Anthropology is the study of human beings, past and present and societies around the world.
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Examine patterns of human physical variability.
Identify evidence that supports race is socially constructed and not based in biology.
Cultivate awareness of human unity and cultural diversity through comparison of
various cultures and connections among people around the world.
Understand the reasons for and development of human and societal endeavors, such as
small-scale societies and civilizations, across time and place.
Use anthropological concepts and practice to reflect on representations of “otherness”
and critically consider students’ own cultural assumptions.
Practice/Application:
Anthropology students:
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apply anthropological concepts and theories to the study of human difference,
contemporary social change, conflict, and other important local, national, and
international problems.
Key Vocabulary:
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Anthropology, Great Chain of Being, Uniformitarianism, Evolution, Social Darwinism, Social
Evolution, Race, Racism, Ethnocentrism, Historical Particularism, Biological Anthropology,
Archaeology, Linguistic Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Material Culture, Artifact,
Language, Communication, Sociocultural Anthropology, Applied Anthropology, Holism,
Comparativism, Enculturation, Acculturation, Diffusion, Culture
People: Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Lewis Henry Morgan, Edward Burnett
Tylor.
Revised March 2014
SYRACUSE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT ANTHROPOLOGY CURRICULUM
Suggested Texts:
Invitation to Anthropology by Luke E. Lassiter
Chapters 1 & 2
Introductory Readings in Anthropology Edited by Hilary Callan, Brian Street and Simon
Underdown
Berghahn Books, 2013
Anthropology: A Beginner’s Guide by: Joy Hendry and Simon Underdown
Oneworld Publications, 2013
Body Ritual Among the Nacirema by Horace Miner
http://www.sfu.ca/~palys/Miner-1956-BodyRitualAmongTheNacirema.pdf
Magical Mass Migrations of the Nacerima
http://www.uky.edu/~addesa01/documents/Nacerima2.pdf
American Anthropological Association Statement on Race
http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm
Suggested Products/Assessments:
Create a web-site or Blog
Evaluate written sources
Object-based project
Artifact analysis
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Create an annotated bibliography
Revised March 2014
SYRACUSE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT ANTHROPOLOGY CURRICULUM
Unit II: Methods and Ethics of Inquiry
Time Span: 4 weeks
Key Idea(s):
Anthropologists take a scientific/empirical approach to collecting information, taking careful
consideration to be systematic, transparent, and trustworthy in conducting and reporting research.
Key Concepts:
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Anthropology draws and builds upon knowledge from the social, natural, and physical
sciences as well as the humanities.
Describe, explain and conduct ethnographic fieldwork.
Identify Ethics, issues and consequences of ethnographic inquiry.
Collaborative and Arts-based research
Practice/Application:
Anthropology Students
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under the guidance of teachers, design, undertake, and report on limited ethnographic
study of local culture or visit to an archaeological site.
Key Vocabulary:
Historical Particularism, Cultural Relativism, ethnocentrism, ethnography, ethnographer,
fieldwork, ethnology, Consultant/informant, co-intellectual, insider-outsider, Experimental
ethnography, Objective/Subjective, Interpretive anthropology, Photo-voice, Collaborative
ethnography, Digital Storytelling
People: Franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinowski, A.R Radcliffe-Brown, Margaret Mead, Clifford
Geertz
Suggested Texts:
Invitation to Anthropology by Luke E. Lassiter
Chapter 3
Collaborative Anthropologies ● V.1●2008
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The Collaborative Power Struggle by Samuel R. Cook, Virginia Tech, printed in Collaborative
Anthropologies●V.2●2009
Revised March 2014
SYRACUSE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT ANTHROPOLOGY CURRICULUM
Suggested Texts Continued....
Anthropological Practice: Fieldwork and the Ethnographic Method By: Judith Okely
Berg Publishers, 2012
Doing Anthropological Research: A Practical Guide Edited by: Natalie Konopinski
Routledge, 2013
Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography By: John Van Maanen
University of Chicago Press; 2nd ed., 2011
Suggested Products:
Create an adaptation of Storycorps project
Conduct interviews
Create a Virtual Exhibit
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Create a Prezi/PowerPoint/Key Note presentation on a selected community
Revised March 2014
SYRACUSE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT ANTHROPOLOGY CURRICULUM
Unit III: Becoming A Person - Processes, Practices and Consequences
Time Span: 6 Weeks
Key Idea(s):
Anthropologists examine what it means to be a human by observing and recording the process,
practices and consequences involved in becoming a person and a member of a social community.
Key Concepts:
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Anthropology is a comparative discipline; it assumes basic human continuities over time
and place, but also recognizes that every society is the product of its own particular
history and that variation and commonalities are found in every society.
Understand the variety of gendered, racialized, or other identities individuals take on over
the life course, and identify the social and cultural processes through which those
identities are constructed.
Practice/Application:
Anthropology students
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apply anthropological concepts of boundaries to the analysis of current ethnic, racial,
gender or religious conflicts in the world-or in a local setting.
Key Vocabulary:
Kinship; Affinity, Consanguinity, Matrilineal, Patrilineal, Matriarchy, Patriarchy, bi-lateral
descent, lineage, incest taboo, exogamy and endogamy, Marriage; polygamy, polgany,
polyandry, dowry, band, Subsistence, Division of labor, Cultural norms, social organization,
affinity, band, clans, gender, gender roles, gender inequality, racial inequality
Suggested Texts:
Invitation to Anthropology by Luke E. Lassiter, Chapters 5,6
A Category of the Human Mind: the notion of person; the notion of self by Marcel Mauss
http://gpgrieve.org/PDF/Category_of_the%20_Person.pdf
The Category of the person, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Michael
Carrithers, Steven Collins, Steven Lukes
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5
Suggested Products:
Family Kinship chart
Ethnography project (local fieldwork)
Revised March 2014
Virtual Exhibit
Research Paper
SYRACUSE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT ANTHROPOLOGY CURRICULUM
Unit IV: Global and Local: Societies, Environments, and Globalization
Time Span: Throughout the course
Key Idea(s):
Anthropologists examine human experience around the world and the causes and consequences
of globalization and how it impacts people’s lives locally and globally.
Key Concepts:
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Anthropologists are centrally concerned with applying their research findings to the
solution of human problems.
Understand the local, national, regional and global development of cultural and social
differences.
Understand the impact of local actions globally and examine how global patterns and
processes affect life locally.
Examine the inherent danger of ethnocentrism and its consequences in a globally
interconnected world.
Practice/Application:
Anthropology students
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apply anthropological concepts to current global issues such as migrations across national
borders or environmental degradation.
Key Vocabulary:
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World System, globalization, cultural critique, genocide, Human trafficking, Sex-slave trade
fundamentalism, environmentalism, activist anthropology, Photo-voice, Collaborative
ethnography, Digital Storytelling
Revised March 2014
SYRACUSE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT ANTHROPOLOGY CURRICULUM
Suggested Texts:
Invitation to Anthropology by Luke E. Lassiter
Chapters 4, 7
Collaborative Democracy: From New England Town Hall Meeting to Occupy Wall Street by
Averill Leslie, printed in Anthropology Now●V.5●No.1●April 2013
Fieldwork: Doing Anthropology Around the World produced by the Royal Anthropological
Institute’s Discover Anthropology Outreach Programme
www.discoveranthropology.org.uk
The Case for Contamination by Kwame Anthony Appiah,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/magazine/01cosmopolitan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Suggested Texts Continued...
Global Village: Summary of the World
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/global-village.htm
Suggested Products:
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Collaborative -Community Service Project (local, regional or state)
Revised March 2014
SYRACUSE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT ANTHROPOLOGY CURRICULUM
Resources
Books:
Reading National Geographic
Cosmopolitianism by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Language Death by David Crystal
Imagining America by Wesley Brown & Amy Ling
Participatory Action Research Curriculum for Empowering Youth, The Institute for Community
Research
Film:
Couple in a Cage
Yanomami Homecoming
American Tongues
Dadi’s Family
In the Light of Reverence
Myths of Indiana Jones
Return of the Navajo Boy
Appalachian Outlaws
Journals:
American Anthropological Association
General Anthropology
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Websites:
http://www.aaanet.org/
www.discoveranthropology.org.uk/images/PDFs/whatisanthroactivity.pdf
www.discoveranthropology.org.uk/images/PDFs/tribeactivity.pdf
www.discoveranthropology.org.uk/images/PDFs/crosscultvariations.pdf
www.discoveranthropology.org.uk/for-teachers/teaching-resources/a-level-anthropologyunit-2.html
www.discoveranthropology.org.uk.home.html
www.incommunityresearch.org/research.html
www.incommunityresearch.org/about/buildingcommunities.pdf
www.storycorps.org
Revised March 2014