Anthropological Literacy: Toward a Holistic Understanding of the Varieties of Human Experience through Oklahoma Social Studies Education

Abstract

In conversations about education in Oklahoma, there are differing views on how to handle equipping students to navigate a diverse world. Social studies education research has long sought new approaches to prepare students for global citizenship. Some conversations, among education researchers and the Oklahoma public alike, have revolved around the use of Critical Race Theory in education as one response to addressing diversity. Anthropology, as the holistic study of humans, offers another framework that moves beyond a focus on race. This study advocates for using the notion of anthropological literacy, or competence in core anthropological principles, as a new way of meeting the shared goals of anthropologists and social studies education researchers for educating students for citizenship. I assessed three different social studies curricula used to teach Oklahoma’s past to determine to what degree Oklahoma public school curriculum is already consistent, or not, with anthropological principles. I examined each for overt content relating to anthropology, and I used Critical Discourse Analysis to uncover covert citizenship discourses that either do or do not translate to contemporary anthropological values. Under the limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic, I also observed to the extent possible the instructional methods of three teachers, one for each curriculum studied, and interviewed the teachers on their experiences. The curricula contain some anthropology content, but they otherwise mixed messages about social power in relation to anthropology concepts. It is clear that greater attention to teachers’ instruction is the key to learning how to make social studies curriculum more anthropological and move toward a more anthropologically literate Oklahoma.