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Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead Quotes

Cultural Anthropologist

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Famous Margaret Mead Quotes

“Mead's anthropology had many other red, white and blue- blooded virtues. One was the common anthropological conceit, out of which she made a career, to the effect that the ultimate value of studying other cultures was the use we could make of them to reconstruct our own - a heady kind of intellectual imperialism, as if the final meaning of others' lives was their significance for us.”

IfsKindMadeUseValuesCultureWhiteCommonCareersVirtueStudyEffectsIntellectualRedUltimateBlueFinalsSignificanceImperialismConceitAnthropologyOther CulturesMeadRed White And Blue
Author:Margaret Mead
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“In every human society of which we have any record, there are those who teach and those who learn, for learning a way of life is implicit in all human culture as we know it. But the separation of the teacher's role from the role of all adults who inducted the young into the habitual behavior of the group, was a comparatively late invention. Furthermore, when we do find explicit and defined teaching, in primitive societies we find it tied in with a sense of the rareness or the precariousness of some human tradition.”

KnowsWayHumansYoungLife IsCultureRolesTeachRecordsTeacherGroupsTeachingBehaviorLateAdultsTraditionSeparationInventionDefinedTiedPrimitiveHabitualHuman SocietyExplicitImplicit
Author:Margaret Mead
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“to the extent that either sex is disadvantaged, the whole culture is poorer, and the sex that, superficially, inherits the earth, inherits only a very partial legacy. The more whole the culture, the more whole each member, each man, each woman, each child will be.”

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Book:Male and female: a study of the sexes in a changing world
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“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”

IfsHumansWholeValuesCultureSocialWomenHistoryRichAchieveDiversitySocial JusticeToleranceDiverseFabricArbitraryFittingUnity In DiversityHuman ValuesI Am WomanInspirational DiversityDiversity Of LifeHuman DiversitySamoaDiverse CulturesFitting Together
Author:Margaret Mead
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“Samoa culture demonstrates how much the tragic or the easy solution of the Oedipus situation depends upon the inter-relationship between parents and children, and is not created out of whole cloth by the young child's biological impulses.”

ChildrenWholeYoungScienceCultureEasyParentSituationDependsSolutionsImpulseTragicYoung ChildrenChildren And ParentsOedipusSamoa
Book:Male and female: a study of the sexes in a changing world
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“If they learn easily, they are penalized for being bored when they have nothing to do; if they excel in some outstanding way, they are penalized as being conspicuously better than the peer group. The culture tries to make the child with a gift into a one-sided person, to penalize him at every turn, to cause him trouble in making friends and to create conditions conducive to the development of a neurosis. Neither teachers, the parents of other children, nor the child peers will tolerate a Wunderkind.”

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Author:Margaret Mead
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“The capacity for friendship usually goes with highly developed civilizations. The ability to cultivate people differs by culture and class; but on the whole, educated people have more ways to make friends... . In England, for instance, you find everyone in your class has read the same books. Here, people grope for something in common-like a newly engaged girl who came to me and said, "It's absolutely wonderful! His uncle and my cousin were on the same football team.”

PeopleWaySaidBookWholeCultureGirlFriendshipAbilityCommonClassWonderfulTeamFootballCivilizationCapacityEnglandEducatedInstanceEngagedUnclesCousinFootball TeamMy Cousin
Author:Margaret Mead
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