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Understanding the Discourse of Early Childhood Education in Coming of Age in Samoa:

Understanding the Discourse of Early Childhood Education in Coming of Age in Samoa: The apparently readily comprehensible descriptive discourse in Margaret Mead’s famous ethnographic study Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) (CAS) presents a discursive challenge that is greater than one might expect from a book that has gained a wide readership. Through theoretical analysis, and in relation to the notorious Mead/Freeman controversy, we seek to contribute to understanding CAS as discourse, and even more specifically as educational discourse. Three research questions are addressed: How can the account of Samoan culture presented by Mead in CAS be understood as discourse? How can her account of early childhood education be understood in relation to Freeman’s account? Is Mead describing permissive education when describing patterns of early childhood education in Samoa? We argue that Mead produced an overlapping research discourse that has appealed to the wider public because of its cultural suppressed message aimed at the unconscious in culture. Mead’s and Freeman’s contradictory accounts of Samoan cultural patterns in relation to early childhood education can be explained by differences in the perspectives of the social and hierarchical positions of respectable elders and chiefs (Freeman) and of young girls who were caregivers of even younger children (Mead). Finally, we argue that early childhood education in Samoa at that time was clearly not permissive. Young Samoan girls internalized the symbolic Law (Lacan) and were therefore able to act in an authoritative way as caregivers. In the field of education nearly a century later, Mead’s descriptions of early childhood education in Samoa still provide an intricate case study. Keywords discourse, Margaret Mead, early childhood education, the unconscious in culture, authority cultural patterns in Samoa and questioned the scientific value Introduction of CAS, the Mead/Freeman controversy gave rise to a num- In her celebrated anthropological study Coming of Age in ber of discussions that, in short, revealed some of the short- Samoa (CAS; Mead, 1928), “one of the most influential comings of Mead’s study while exposing the unconvincing anthropological works of the twentieth century” (Stocking, nature of Freeman’s theses. It is sufficient to quote Lowell 1989), Margaret Mead analyzed the way young girls grew up Holmes, who, in 1954, completed a “methodological in Samoa in the mid-1920s and, within this context, the cul- restudy” of Mead’s work in Ta’u, concluding that, despite tural patterns of early childhood education. With this “famous some deficiencies, “the reliability of Mead’s account is apprentice book” (Kuper, 1989), she embarked on a career remarkably high” (Holmes, 1987, p. 314). that established her as “a symbol for the women’s move- With his criticism, Freeman in fact unwittingly encour- ment” (Strikwerda, 1991, p. 299). From the 1980s until aged numerous interpretations of CAS that would not other- recently, Mead’s anthropological study has, particularly wise have emerged, but that are indispensable for a thanks to the notorious critique by Derek Freeman (Freeman, contemporary reflective understanding of Mead’s study. 1983, 1999), been the subject of extensive discussion both However, as far as we can determine from the available among the broader public and in American anthropology and philosophy of science (Abubakar, 2018; Côté & Freeman, 2000; Freeman et al., 2014; Holmes, 1987; Jarvie, 2013, 1 Univerza v Ljubljani, Slovenia 2017; Levy, 1984; Mageo, 1988; Rappaport, 1986; Corresponding Author: Shankman, 2006, 2009; Va’a, 2008). In the decade of debates Janez Krek, Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Kardeljeva pl. 16, that followed the first Freeman critics (1983), in which he Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia. challenged the findings of Mead’s ethnographic study of Email: janez.krek@pef.uni-lj.si Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 SAGE Open sources, the interpretations to date have not highlighted how understanding CAS in general as discourse, and more spe- understanding the discourse in CAS requires a knowledge cifically as educational discourse. not only of anthropological theories and insights but also of linguistic, educational, and other theories or concepts. Nor Theoretical Background and have they identified how the intercultural, overlapping dis- Research Questions course of CAS contributes to its scientific originality. In his assessment of the Mead/Freeman controversy, pub- Based on the example of the description of early childhood lished in the journal Nature, Kuper (1989) points out that education in Mead’s ethnographic study, our aim is to dem- Mead triggered a questioning of anthropology regarding onstrate why and how the apparently readily comprehensible “ethnographic fieldwork and writing” (p. 454), which is descriptive discourse of CAS presents a discursive chal- Mead’s characteristic method of research. Freeman claimed lenge. However, CAS is a study of growing up and therefore that he could refute Mead by opposing “his observations to also requires the introduction of educational theories and hers” (Kuper, 1989, p. 455); however, this is a fundamental concepts. To understand questions of education, anthropol- methodological and discursive error of his critique. Factual ogy needs to employ educational theories for understanding claims are always interpretations of facts, as their meaning descriptions of human symbolic reality, that is, cultural pat- emerges only within a certain discursive, symbolic network. terns of education and how these patterns, as a symbolic real- In relation to observation in ethnographic fieldwork and ity, have an influence (through interpersonal relationships writing, this means, as Kuper (1989) puts it, that “no obser- and education) on the formation of the personality of chil- vation is neutral; no observer can free him or herself from dren and adolescents. constraints imposed by culture, status and life history” In addition to various authors and texts from the field of (p. 455). Moreover, any research (not only observation) is cultural anthropology, the present theoretical study therefore also dependent on scientific theories and concepts that enable has two additional conceptual backgrounds: in the discourse questions and understanding, as well as the possible explicit analysis of CAS, we primarily follow the psychoanalytical or hidden assumptions of the research. Therefore, scientific theory of Freud and his French successor Lacan, according enquiry, and ethnographic enquiry in particular, is a process to which the structure of personality in a human being is that includes the “observer and writer” (as a research agency, formed with the entry to language through discourse or, in his or her research object, questions, theories, specific the terminology of cultural anthropology, through patterns of research methods, specific knowledge and culture, etc.) and culture. Lacan followed the assumption of Freud’s theory the “community of others” (experts and natives), who are that the human personality is divided into the conscious and indispensable for approaching truth and understanding. This the unconscious with the thesis that the unconsciousness— does not mean that ethnography is caught in a vicious circle unconscious thinking, comprehension, feeling, perception, of total relativity and endless debate. There is an “authority emotions, and so on—is formed through the Other as dis- in ethnography, one which is not necessarily embodied in any course (Lacan, 1966). The division between the permitted one account, but which is emergent in the process of expert and the prohibited, between the external and the internal, that research, comparison, evaluation and debate” (Kuper, 1989, functions within discourse is the sociocultural foundation of p. 455; author’s emphasis). individual unconsciousness. In our interpretation of the cul- As we approach the centenary of the publication of a tural patterns of education in CAS, we also use the educa- book that has “enjoyed substantial classroom adoption for tional theories developed by Baumrind (Baumrind, 1966, decades” (Rappaport, 1986, p. 324), and in view of 1967, 1971) and others (Bernstein, 2013; Dusi, 2012; Freeman’s criticism—which was intended to undermine Maccoby, 1992; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Parke & Buriel, Mead’s status—and the subsequent debates, the question 2006; Paulson et al., 1998; Pellerin, 2005), in which educa- arises as to whether the text still justifies treatment in uni- tional behaviors and types of authority are correlated with versity courses today. We believe that, in the contemporary specific personality structures. world, the text still provides an intriguing starting point for Anthropological debates tackling the Mead/Freeman con- study at the intersection of cultural anthropology and edu- troversy have mainly highlighted various questions from the cation precisely because it requires interpretation. Our the- point of view of the “truth of ethnographic facts” and the sis is that these debates—albeit after the author’s death, scientific nature of ethnographic research methodology. Our decades after the publication of the book, and often contrary research contributes to these discussions with an interpreta- to the intentions of the criticism and responses—have tion of the discourse that Mead employs in CAS, and our first revealed that the text, despite its shortcomings, is discur- research question concerns how we can understand Mead’s sively complex and challenging for interpretation. The chal- account of Samoan culture in CAS as a whole as discourse. lenge of understanding the open questions in CAS is greater The second and the third research questions are posed than one might expect from discourse in a book that has specifically from the perspective of education, the philoso- gained a wide readership. With the present contribution to phy of education, and educational theories. In describing existing interpretations, we seek to contribute to early childhood education of the time in Samoa, Mead Krek 3 assumes that she is describing early childhood education that independent of the discipline of anthropology” “is unpersua- is less violent, less demanding, less repressive, and more sive” (Strikwerda, 1991, p. 301). We concur that any “sepa- casual than education in Western societies at the same time. ration” of CAS from either science or anthropology is not a Mead’s descriptive discourse describing early childhood pertinent “solution” of the Mead/Freeman controversy. On education in Samoa in the mid-1920s and Freeman’s appar- the contrary, such a defense of CAS exposes an even greater ently contradictory observations refer to education; however, demand for close reading and interpretation in relation to they are not “merely” descriptions, but accounts of the pat- CAS as discourse that pertains to scientific truth. Strikwerda terns of education in Samoa. We want to show that under- (1991) maintains that “insofar as anthropologists used CAS standing both “descriptive discourse” (Mead) and and other of Mead’s books in their intro courses, because as “observations” (Freeman) as discursive facts and perspec- Goodenough claims, ‘They turned students on’, they are tives requires educational theories and concepts that make it implicated in the controversy” and in “a lack of responsibil- possible to better understand ethnographic content about a ity for one’s student audience” (p. 302). It is precisely the specific past. Therefore, the second research question con- question of what it is in the discourse of CAS that “turns cerns how to understand Mead’s account of early childhood students on” that requires closer interpretation. education in relation to Freeman’s account, specifically in Rappaport defended CAS as capable of referring to an relation to authority in education. American myth and of generating new, different, alternative The distant past sometimes enables a better understanding mythical messages, meaning that, “as a myth,” it carries the of the cultural patterns of contemporary society. As it turns truth within itself. However, even if CAS did produce mythi- out, today, almost a hundred years later, educational issues cal understanding and effects, the discourse itself is not are relevant from the opposite perspective to which they mythical discourse; it is scientific ethnography, with dis- were probably viewed by Mead. Not in relation to the course that is largely on the level of descriptions, describing Freeman’s critique but in the perspective of cultural patterns patterns of culture, including patterns of early childhood of permissive education in our contemporary societies, we education. Needless to say, interpretation requires an under- pose the third question: When describing patterns of early standing of the theoretical backgrounds of the study (i.e., the childhood education in Samoa, is Mead describing patterns cultural anthropology of Boas, Benedict, etc.; the universal- of permissive education? ist psychological claim of that era regarding adolescence as a period of storm and stress; Freudian psychoanalytic con- cepts), as well as educational theories that enable an under- Findings With Discussion standing of authority in education, and so on. However, if the discourse of CAS does have the potential to appeal to a naïve Understanding Mead’s Account of the reader, it is precisely its descriptive parts that require atten- Culture in Samoa in CAS as Discourse tion and reflection (more than her explanations of the find- Anthropologists and the wider (American) public would ings). The interpretative problem of CAS and understanding agree that the main lines of CAS were familiar to generations its discourse require exposing the cultural assumptions that of readers, including millions of students in the United States work “behind” Mead’s description of behavior in Samoa, for (Kuper, 1989). Why has this study—and not, for instance, instance, her description of Samoan “early childhood educa- Mead’s sober ethnography of Samoa, Social Organization of tion,” of Samoan “formal sex relations,” and so on. Manu’a (Mead, 1930/1969)—resonated so much and so long In general, Rappaport and many others (Errington & among the American public? In a very insightful defense of Gewertz, 1987; Marcus & Fischer, 1986) have pointed out CAS, Rappaport (1986) pointed out that as science CAS is these cultural assumptions of Mead. As he writes, Mead’s “not so much incorrect as thin and in need of enrichment, it ethnographic chapters offered an account of a society in did make a modest contribution to Samoan ethnography” (p. which childhood and adolescence were much easier for most 347). Rappaport (1986) locates the true significance of CAS people, a society with more permissive conventions of sex in how it both supported and coincided with the American and more egalitarian relations between men and women mythos, evoking alternatives in the cultural imagination, (Rappaport, 1986, p. 323). The social conventions of Mead’s and, as such a myth, he suggests it served Americans well contemporary Western societies form the background of the insofar as its messages are “humane and liberating” (p. 347). discourse of CAS, and it is through the depiction of such dif- However, Strikwerda rightly points out that the separation of ferences that Mead offered an alternative vision of society. the factual from the mythical and the separation of the dis- Indeed, CAS does not propose an alternative directly; it course of CAS (with its relation to the American mythos) “only” describes different social patterns of a different cul- from the discipline of anthropology as scientific discourse ture. Besides, its “mythical lesson” in relation to change in are dubious. No facts can be regarded “simply as ‘observable society is anti-mythical: Patterns of culture are “culturally state of affairs’; also facts are ‘substantiated or proven relative.” If it is characteristic of myth “to represent the spe- claims’” (Strikwerda, 1991, p. 301). Furthermore, the impli- cifically cultural or conventional as both natural and sacred” cation that “this myth works at the level of American culture, (Rappaport, 1986, p. 323), the lesson of Mead’s ethnography 4 SAGE Open is that our own ways are not humanly inevitable, not God- internalized cultural norms, generates this absence from the ordained, but the result of our symbolic, discursive universe content of objectified descriptions. of human culture. It is not that such understandings are any If we want to understand the true extent of Mead’s dis- less important in our contemporary globalized world; the course in CAS, that which is the discursive subjective truth, point to be understood here regarding the descriptive nature it is necessary to introduce the difference between statement of CAS’s language as discourse is that, on the surface, it is and enunciation—otherwise common in linguistics—in a descriptive, “documentary,” but it is not a mythical dis- specific psychoanalytic sense (Lacan, 1966; Žižek, 2012), course. Not even Freeman claims that it amounts to a myth; according to which enunciation is the place at which the sub- he claims that it is mistaken because it omits what he could ject of the unconscious is uttered. In Lacanian theory, the observe. What is omitted? In the chapters that Freeman unconscious is situated in discourse (the Other), as reflected (1983) wrote on childrearing and punishment (Chapters 13 in his famous phrase, “the unconscious is structured like a and 14), he claims that there is strong mother–child bonding language.” It is through the act of enunciation that we have in Samoa, that parental discipline is severe, and that there is access to the unconscious in the psychoanalytic sense. a high level of aggression and violence toward children and Therefore, the unconscious should not be understood as adolescents. He does not, however, argue that Mead’s something that is “deeply hidden” in a particular human descriptions of early childhood education are wrong; if they being; rather, it is a discursive phenomenon, it exists on its are inadequate, it is because of the discursive presence of surface; for instance, it emerges in the act of enunciation something that he is missing in the descriptions. through internalized cultural norms. Lacan (1966) writes that Again, it is possible, as Freeman probably does, to under- “the presence of the unconscious, being situated in the locus stand this absence as a methodological failure of the selec- of the Other, can be found in every discourse, in its enuncia- tion procedure, that is, that it is not sufficiently objective in tion” (p. 834). the reality of obtaining, selecting, and presenting data (due to Through the discourse of CAS, the unconscious truth Mead’s subjective desire to “find” a culture with less violent emerges only from within the gap between the enunciated or repressive education). However, with different selection, content (for instance, Mead’s objectivized presentations of and with Freeman’s additional “data and observation,” are “Samoan early childhood education,” “sex relations,” etc.) we actually reading an objective account of Samoan early and the subjective position of enunciation (the “absent” pat- childhood education? Of course not. His criteria for analysis terns of violence, discipline, severe parental control, etc.). are again subjective, as his key references for selection are The truth emerges as a surprise from within the reader’s own explicitly Mead’s own findings and the generalizations in embeddedness in Western patriarchal culture, through com- CAS that he is trying to refute. The key for selection is find- parison with his or her own patterns of education. ing cases that prove his different generalizations. In both For instance, according to Mead’s (1928) description of cases, however, the results are not simply “descriptions,” but early childhood education in the chapter “The Education of two different accounts of culture, including early childhood the Samoan Child” (pp. 16–28), the education and socializa- education. To a certain extent, they are probably both right. tion of children after weaning was the responsibility mainly As Kuper (1989) writes, “Freeman may be presenting the of girls from 6 or 7 years of age onward. Adolescent girls point of view of respectable elders, while Mead (who partici- were “released from baby-tending” (Mead, 1928, p. 21). pated mainly in the lives of the adolescent girls) may be gen- Mead writes that “from the birth until the age of four or five eralizing from what was an informal sub-culture” (p. 25). a child’s education is exceedingly simple” (Mead, 1928, However, if we were satisfied with this conclusion, we would p. 18). There were only a limited number of rules, “really simply miss the essential difference between these two simply a series of avoidances” (Mead, 1928, p. 18), that they accounts as discourses. The assumption of Freeman’s objec- had to learn and internalize in their first few years: tivity discourse is that by adding opposing observations, it They must be housebroken . . . They must learn to sit or crawl rejects the findings and key theses of Mead’s research. within the house and never to stand upright unless it is absolutely However, even the facts do not speak for themselves, they necessary; never to address an adult in a standing position; to have to be substantiated (Kuper, 1989; Levy, 1984; stay out of the sun; not to tangle the strands of the weaver; not to Strikwerda, 1991). Also Mead’s discourse is conceived as an scatter the cut-up cocoanut which is spread out to dry; to keep objective assessment, but it is more complex than it appears their scant loin clothes at least nominally fastened to their from its objective, descriptive character. Through, on the persons; to treat fire and knives with proper caution; if their first level, the objective description of reality, the discourse father is a chief, not to crawl on his bed place when he is by. evokes what is absent from it, what does not exist in the These are really simply a series of avoidances, enforced by descriptions, even though the reader would expect it to be occasional cuffing and a deal of exasperated shouting and present. That which is “absent” is the “concealed” subjective ineffectual conversation. (Mead, 1928, p. 18) truth of the discourse; for the reader, it is the “genuine truth,” the true message. This is because its subject, that which “cre- For a reader raised in a patriarchal, authoritarian culture of ates” the discursive presence of absence, is the reader him- violence, these and other descriptions of early childhood self or herself, that is, the reader, subjected to his or her own education in CAS indicate childhood education with an Krek 5 absence of the violence “familiar to the reader.” The absence in Samoa), he himself creates the opposite overgeneraliza- of certain cultural patterns in Western culture is perhaps even tion of Samoan culture, a kind of mirror images of the gener- more apparent through the presence of descriptions in alizations in CAS. The essential difference between the two Chapter 7, which relate to formal sexual relations, that is, studies is therefore in originality and in the fact that Western through the descriptions of romantic love encounters of culture is the starting point of the research while being its young people under palm trees, the promiscuous sexuality of basis and the reverse side of the discourse in CAS (its subjec- adolescents of both genders before marriage, the carefree tive position of enunciation). We should note, however, that attitude toward faithfulness in marriage, the fact that the Mead does not try to define “American national character.” taboo of virginity only applies to taupou and not to the rest of Her starting point is individual traits of this culture, the traits the girls, and so on. that she perceives as overly repressive in relation to educa- Insufficiencies on the level of scientific striving for objec- tion, sexuality, and so on. It is in this area that Mead takes tivity are, at the same time, the advantage of such ethno- aim very precisely. Many theoretical and analytical parts of graphic enquiry, resulting in the emergence of the subject of the text are, from today’s theoretical and methodological per- unconsciousness that is inscribed in objectivized scientific spective, probably naïve or flawed. However, the originality discourse. It is the gap in the discourse between the enunci- of the discourse in CAS is in its descriptive parts, in that, due ated content (descriptions) and the subjective position of to the subjective criteria of certain patterns of Western cul- enunciation (that which it produces in the descriptions as ture, the discursive descriptions of cultural and behavioral absent) that is key to the truth. Mead produced a double- patterns in Samoa recognize a difference, which is perceived coined research discourse: on the surface, mostly a descrip- by readers enculturated in the cultural norms of the West. tive discourse, but a discourse that “turned students on” The discourse of CAS evokes what these norms “miss.” The because of its cultural suppressed message, which emerges subjective truth of the discourse is structured as the evoca- through what is recognized as absent in it. However, the tion of the “collective unconscious” of Western culture, but place from which this absence is “objectivized” as truthful— not of its “whole,” not of collective “national character,” but valid and reliable—is not Mead, but the reader himself or merely of its individual elements, that is, patriarchal, repres- herself. Within objective descriptions of cultural patterns of sive authoritarian patterns. The subjective truth of the dis- education that appear as less violent, less demanding, and course in CAS may explain why the book has been so less repressive (in comparison with Western patriarchal edu- successful among generations of readers over the decades, cational culture of that period) emerge the subjective truth of but this can only arise through the objectivity of scientific the discourse: that different cultural patterns exist, that they discourse whose goal is truth. are therefore possible, and so on (and that “I can bear witness to and recognize this through what I have missed in my own Understanding CAS’s Educational Discourse experience”). Of course, this “humane and liberating” mes- in Relation to Freeman’s Account of Education sage of the discourse is deeply political. CAS is a piece of in Samoa scholarship, but its advantage is that it is not afraid of placing itself in relation to the field of cultural politics, or to put it We now come to the second research question and the field differently, as has been already noted, it does not place itself of education. Mead’s question was whether adolescence was “outside politics” (Strikwerda, 1991, p. 303). necessarily a period of conflict and stress due to the inescap- Kuper (1989) writes that “the consensus among anthro- able biological processes of puberty or whether this was the pologists is that both Mead and Freeman over-generalized in result of culture, that is, the specific cultural pressures caused characterizing the ‘ethos’ of Samoan Culture; in any case, by patterns of American culture. According to Mead, adoles- defining national character is a hopelessly subjective and cent girls in Samoa seemed to have an untroubled passage to impressionistic project, which most contemporary anthro- maturity in general. However, she also found exceptions to pologists have abandoned” (p. 23). Indeed, in CAS, we find the rule: a few sulky, angry girls. Her conclusion was that the generalized definitions of the “ethos” of Samoan Culture, storm and stress of American adolescence was a culture-spe- which may be understood as defining a “national character.” cific phenomenon, largely caused by cultural patterns and For instance, Mead (1928) depicted patterns of life in Samoa the intense pressures of family life. Freeman disagrees with (on the island of Taū, in the Manu’a Archipelago in the mid- most of Mead’s ethnographic generalizations. According to 1920s) in general as contrasted with America, but also with his account, early childhood education in Samoa is charac- “most primitive civilizations,” with Samoa’s “casual attitude terized by strong mother–child bonding and severe parental towards life,” “avoidance of conflict, of poignant situations” discipline, and there is a high level of aggression and vio- (p. 138). From the perspective of contemporary methodolog- lence in childhood and later. Apparently, we are confronted ical criteria of qualitative and ethnographic enquiry, there are with two contradictory accounts of patterns of Samoan cul- many such overgeneralizations in CAS. As these generaliza- ture, especially in relation to education and sex. tions in CAS are the fundamental starting points of Freeman’s Mead’s research question as to whether adolescence is research and discourse (not an objective analysis of culture necessarily a period of conflict and stress has been surpassed 6 SAGE Open today. The question that is interesting from the point of view is markedly authoritarian and depends directly on a system of of ethnographic research is how to understand the findings of severe discipline . . .” (Freeman, 1983, p. 209). However, these two apparently contradictory accounts of culture in Freeman’s emphasis on the attachment between child and Samoa, assuming that both of them fail to provide a full mother in the first years of childhood does not contradict any- account, and yet have certain ethnographic accuracy and thing described in CAS. Similarly, the examples of violence merit. that he describes do not prove that Mead’s descriptions are Answers to such questions require the introduction of incorrect. educational theories or theories that enable an understanding Freeman implicitly establishes a link between patterns of of educational discourse, that is, an understanding of descrip- punishment, as he describes them himself, and the hierarchi- tions of certain typical behaviors of those who educate, cal nature of society, on one hand, and the repressive patterns descriptions of relationships between children and those who of culture and education, on the other. Therefore, the ques- educate, and descriptions of the general cultural patterns that tion emerges in relation to CAS: If Mead’s descriptions of establish and shape these relationships, as well as the author- early childhood education are right, does the reduced signifi- ity of parents and caregivers in relation to children. cance of strict—or purely physical—punishment in educa- In Freeman’s (1983) critique, two chapters are directly tion necessarily mean that education is nonauthoritative, associated with education: “Punishment” and “Childrearing.” noncoercive? Freeman demonstrates that culture and education in Samoa It is necessary to resort to the help of educational theories in the 1920s were more hierarchical and repressive than and concepts to be able to interpret the apparent contradic- depicted by Mead. In line with this, he writes at the begin- tion between cases of violence and authoritarianism ning of the chapter entitled “Punishment”: (Freeman), on one hand, and the prevailing absence of vio- lence in early education (2–6 years of age) described in CAS, on the other. In the second half of the 20th century, consider- Samoan society as depicted by Mead was neither severe not able attention was focused on authoritarianism and concepts punitive. Rather, so she asserted, the Samoans inhabit a social order that “is kind to all and does not make sufficient demands of authority in the educational context. In her initial studies upon any.” These assertions are inaccurate and misleading. of authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative parenting in (Freeman, 1983, p. 191) the 1960s and 1970s (Baumrind, 1966, 1967, 1971), Baumrind constructed a concept of permissive indulgent par- In contrast to Mead’s depiction of Samoa’s gentle culture, ents (as she called them in her early research), who are emo- Freeman (1983) describes various cases of punishment and tional, caring, and involved, but tend to be extremely tolerant hierarchical order in Samoan society. However, in this chap- and exercise little or no control and discipline. Baumrind ter, he describes mostly patterns of punishment in adult life found that, in many respects, children of permissive parents in Samoa, not in early childhood education, with the implica- did not differ significantly from children of authoritarian par- tion that cases of frequent severe punishment reflect general ents. Authoritarian parents are severe, demanding, intolerant, patterns of culture. Freeman (1983) mentions that “the autocratic, nonresponsive, and punitive. In contrast to both, Samoan term for obedience, usiusita’i, refers specifically to authoritative parents are firm but fair and establish demands the action of listening to an instruction and then unquestion- and discipline in an atmosphere of care. Baumrind’s research ingly carrying it out,” and this obedience “is greatly lauded, showed that authoritative behavior of parents is linked to especially in untitled men, members of the ‘aumaga, whose independent, purposive behavior in children and that authori- principal obligation is to serve the chiefs . . .” (p. 192). In tative parental control is clearly associated with all social 1941, this cultural pattern was mentioned in court in the responsibility indices in boys compared with authoritarian defense of seven such untitled men who assaulted a man in and permissive parental control, as well as being associated their village, with the claim that they were merely “blindly with high achievement in girls (Baumrind, 1971). obeying” the edicts of their chiefs as Samoan custom The results of recent studies show the same basic patterns required. The position of an educator who demands blind (Bernstein, 2013; Dusi, 2012; Kuhar & Reiter, 2013; obedience corresponds to the authoritarian type of authority. Maccoby, 1992; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Parke & Buriel, It means that my Command is the Law, that the meaning of a 2006; Paulson et al., 1998; Pellerin, 2005). In a meta-study Law is defined through that which the chiefs, as its bearers, of 1,435 studies that identified a relationship between family say it is. education models and externalized symptoms in children and In the next chapter “Childrearing,” explicitly referring to adolescents, Pinquart finds that parental warmth, behavioral Bowlby’s attachment theory, Freeman argues that mother– control, autonomy granting, and an authoritative parenting child attachment is much closer than Mead suggests when she style showed very small to small negative concurrent and emphasizes how, within a Samoan extended family, an infant longitudinal associations with externalizing problems. In is succored by “women of all ages and none of them have contrast, harsh control, psychological control, and authori- disciplined it.” In the concluding sections, he summarizes his tarian, permissive, and neglectful parenting were associated observations, saying that “Samoan social organization, then, with higher levels of externalizing problems (Pinquart, Krek 7 2017). Thus, the violent behavior of children resulting from and through its enforcement (for instance, through education permissive education can be added to authoritarian (often and also punishment). Based on particular Samoan cultural also physical) violence in education as a cause of “external- norms, the Law existed as the symbolic Law in discourse, izing problems” (Krek, 2019). According to Mead, adoles- mediated “through the chiefs” and its actual enforcement cent girls in Samoa had an untroubled passage to maturity, through all elders with regard to younger people, including and their adolescence was not a period of conflict and stress. girls who were in charge of younger children. How can we understand her findings through the concepts of Freeman’s point of departure is the position of respectable recent empirical research on authority in education? It would elders, and as evidence he describes the authoritarian action follow that neither authoritarian nor permissive patterns pre- of chiefs in relation to untitled men. The education practiced vailed in early childhood education in Samoa at the time of by the young girls with regard to the young children entrusted her research. Could we therefore understand early childhood to them also had elements of coercion, but their educational education as being predominantly authoritative? behavior, means of coercion, and authority differed signifi- In his classic study The Culture of Narcissism (Lasch, cantly from the behavior, authority, and power of the chiefs. 1979), Lasch links permissiveness with “the absence of the If we place the descriptions of both anthropologists in the father” and “the abdication” or “the breakdown of authority” context of theories of authority in education, these differ- in contemporary society. For instance, following Rogow, ences in the behavior and type of authority of the two sub- Lasch (1979) finds that American parents are alternatively groups within a particular community come as no surprise. “permissive and wavering” (p. 178) in their behavior with Both Mead’s and Freeman’s descriptions may be appropriate young people and find that it is easier to achieve conformity in terms of the scientific criteria of validity and reliability; if they submit to bribery than if they deal with the emotional what is mistaken is Freeman’s understanding that the second agitation associated with repressing the child’s demands. To perspective undermines the first. The differences in the understand this in Freudian terms, the pleasure principle can descriptions and facts that the two authors highlight in the itself lead parents to permissive behaviors: They do every- field of education are (more or less) a reflection of the real thing in order not to have to “deal with emotional agitation” differences between these two subgroups in their hierarchi- in relation to the child and not to perform an action that cal position and differences in gender, age, and socially should follow as a confrontation to the child’s resistance to expected behavior. their posed expectations. Referring to Rose in his analysis, Lasch (1979) writes, “Some parents, for example, are inca- Cultural Patterns of Early Childhood Education pable of such things as putting the child to bed if the child in Samoa at the Beginning of the Previous protests or is not able to contain his or her aggressiveness . . Century: Was It Permissive? .” (p. 166). Obviously, the point here is not so much con- nected with the content of the norm or rule, as with the CAS’s educational discourse of early childhood raises a inability, the incapacity, of parents to implement, to impose, third research question relevant to contemporary educational a particular norm or rule in relation to the child. Parents are practice: If early childhood education in Samoa was as Mead aware of what they “want” or what they “should do,” but described it in the chapter “The Education of the Samoan they nevertheless “give in,” they do not insist on the demand Child,” does it follow that education in Samoa was permis- set. In Lacanian psychoanalytic terms, the key consequence sive? To answer this question, we have to ask how these few of this specific subjective uncertainty of parents is the rules were conceived and implemented by the young educa- absence of the symbolic Law in their speech and in education tors themselves, that is, by girls as their agents. acts. The absence of the symbolic Law in discourse is a key On one hand, there are Mead’s descriptions of their trait of permissiveness. actions, which on first glance might be understood as per- Following this criterion, how can we understand Mead’s missive behavior in education due to their nonviolent char- description of early childhood education in Samoa? acter. These rules were “enforced by occasional cuffing and In Freeman’s account, Samoan society of that period was, a deal of exasperated shouting and ineffectual conversa- of course, not a permissive society. To be precise, however, tion.” The shouting (“Come out of the sun,” “Keep still,” in Lacanian terms, through authoritarian patterns of culture, “Sit still,” “Keep your mouths shut,” etc.) was depicted by he is describing the Law of jouissance, enjoyment, that, at Mead as “uttered quite mechanically,” whereas the require- least in the male part of the culture, also functioned as irratio- ment of silence is “continually mentioned and never nal enjoyment, through unquestionable, irresistible Super- enforced” (Mead, 1928, p. 18). Children responsible for Ego command. However, it does not follow from this that the even younger children feared the disagreeable conse- symbolic Law was absent in the social fabric. Quite the oppo- quences resulting from a child’s crying, so that “long after site. Both Mead and Freeman describe the society’s hierar- there is any need for it, they succumb to some little tyrant’s chical structures, from which we may conclude that the threat of making a scene and five-year-olds bully their way existence of the symbolic Law was a cultural pattern of into expeditions of which they will have to be carried . . .” Samoan society, existing in the discourse of Samoan custom (Mead, 1928, p. 19). 8 SAGE Open On the other hand, Mead (1928) writes that The question of contemporary permissiveness is not so much a question of physical violence or nonviolence toward this method of giving in, coaxing, bribing, diverting of infant the child, but a question of whether the symbolic Law exists disturbers is only pursued within the household or the or does not exist in discourse and in education as action. In relationship group, where there are duly constituted elders in Samoa at that time, small children were not brought up by authority to punish the older children who can’t keep the babies adult men, and not even by their mothers or other adult still. Towards a neighbor’s children or in a crowd of half-grown women. What is important, however, is that all children— girls and boys even the adults vent their full irritation upon the boys and girls—aged 2 to 6 years were brought up by girls heads of troublesome children. If a crowd of children are near with similar patterns of upbringing, which were certainly not enough, pressing in curiously to watch some spectacle at which as authoritarian or violent as parents often could be in societ- they are not wanted, they are soundly lashed with palm leaves, ies in the United States at the time. However, these girls did or dispersed with a shower of small stones, of which the house not practice care for young children in the way contemporary floor always furnishes a ready supply . . . . And even these bursts of anger are nine-tenths gesture. No one who throws the stones permissiveness does; while imposing the cultural norms of actually means to hit the child, but the children know that if they their culture, they held the place of the symbolic Law. repeat their intrusions too often, by the laws of chance some of the flying bits of corals will land in their faces. (p. 19) Conclusion Through this study, Mead interprets, at least to a certain However, “by the time a child is six or seven she has all the extent, the state of her own culture (United States) at the essential avoidances well enough by heart to be trusted with time. It is therefore possible to understand the study pub- the care of a younger child. And she also develops some sim- lished by Mead in its entirety as a text whose fundamental ple techniques” (Mead, 1928, p. 20). Girls were able to goal is not only to provide a description of culture in Samoa undertake the task of early education and socialization but also to offer an interpretation of patterns of Western cul- because, by the age of 6 or 7, they had internalized the ture: Mead’s own Western culture is “reassessed” through norms—the “series of avoidances”—of Samoan culture. The descriptions of culture in Samoa, descriptions that serve as pattern of education also implied that a child was further the “other” of Western culture. Mead’s book enjoyed such “disciplined and socialized through responsibility for a still incredible success among readers because it showed the hid- younger one” (Mead, 1928, p. 19). From this chapter and den side of their own culture, the reverse perspective, and elsewhere, it is clear that the hierarchical organization of because it responded to the problems of their own society. society was in place. As early as in the 1960s, Mead was aware of various criti- For the operation of the “father function” or “symbolic cisms, including Freeman’s, and of the possible different Law” (Lacan, 1998, pp. 179–196) in moral education, the views on the culture of a particular community. In the final relationship of the caregiver toward her own words is crucial. chapter of the reissue of Social Organization of Manu’a in Were the young Samoan caregiver’s own words the law for 1969, she writes, “There is a serious problem of reconciling themselves? Did their discourse and acts express a certainty these contradictions between the mildness, the willingness to of belief in those “simple” avoidances? We do not doubt that gloss over and compromise, which I found in Manu’a and in both accounts of Samoan society of that period—Mead’s other records of historical and contemporary behavior” and Freeman’s—the answers should be positive. The girls, (Mead, 1930/1969, p. 227). She explains that these differ- young caregivers, were submitted to moral restraint, and at ences are accounted for by her specific perspective, the par- the age of 7, they were able to pass that symbolic instance on ticular locus in which she placed herself when describing to even younger children. Samoan culture in CAS: “the vantage point from which I saw In Samoa of that period, the process of symbolic identifi- it” (Mead, 1930/1969, p. 228) was the position of a young cation with adults, through which the child arrives at the girl. The difference between Freeman’s point of view of internalization of the symbolic order, was undoubtedly func- respectable elders and Mead’s of adolescent girls is the tioning, meaning that the Ego-Ideal, as an internalized objective difference in the social position of the subgroup, instance of the symbolic Law, had been initiated. Young girls that is, those who educate, which is reflected in education as did not function as a kind of “omnipotent” other who is the difference between two contrasting modes of educational always there and satisfies the Demand of the child (Krek, behavior and types of authority. 2015). In response to the narcissistic demand of youngsters, The originality of CAS as scientific work lies in the con- they did not act violently, but stubbornly. They were not ception of its two overlapping discourses. On one hand, CAS severe or even obsessively cruel representatives of the pat- follows the criteria of cultural anthropology as a science with terns of culture, but, while allowing the explorations of its own domain of study, appropriate techniques, and meth- youngsters, they were persistent in repeating again and again ods producing valid and reliable knowledge in the domain; at precisely the symbolic norms of the society, the paternal law the same time, however, it is a product of anthropology as (Krek & Zabel, 2017). As bearers of early childhood educa- cultural critique (of patriarchal, authoritarian Western cul- tion, they were clearly not permissive; even at a very young ture), a discourse in its own right with its own criteria of age, they were able to be authoritative. Krek 9 validity and reliability. The power of “cultural critique” ORCID iD stems not so much from Mead’s explicit, “subjective” critical Janez Krek https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5827-7609 comments, which we also find in the text, but from the objec- tivized scientific descriptions of Samoan culture that simul- Notes taneously relate to the unconscious truth of a particular 1. We should note that he is mainly not referring to the data for culture, a particular Other: Western culture. We have discov- the period of time of Mead’s research, but for later decades. ered that, through the discourse of CAS, the unconscious Although this is not insignificant for the value of his argument, truth emerges only from the gap between Mead’s objectiv- for our argument it is not of crucial importance. ized presentations of “Samoan early childhood education,” 2. Freeman has not tried to provide any alternative theory on ado- “sex relations,” and so on and, for readers embedded in lescence, and he does not oppose the idea that conflict and Western culture, the absent patterns of violence, discipline, stress are not inevitable and universal in adolescence, which severe parental control, and so in those descriptions. The was Mead’s general conclusion. point here is that the second discourse (the truth of the uncon- 3. Types, possibilities, and prohibitions in the area of sexual rela- tionships among youth and adults—although they were more scious) had its own validity and reliability for its readers, and strictly regulated, as Mead describes, within the context of because of that “piece of truth,” which is nevertheless essen- bringing up children, whereby children up to 7 years of age are tial, CAS generated the interest of a wider audience in a sci- brought up by girls, or a girl, aged from 7 to 14 years, and in entific anthropological study. the formation of the fundamental structure of the personality in From the perspective of cultural anthropology as a social early youth—are not relevant in this context. science that should produce objective, extensive information 4. On entering puberty, a Samoan girl had more possibilities, as and knowledge about particular cultures, CAS could be Mead would say, to experiment than a girl in Western culture at regarded as a piece of scientific work that is “not so much the time. Moreover, this freedom and the possibility of escap- incorrect as thin and in need of enrichment” (Rappaport, ing from a particular situation that the individual perceived as 1986, p. 347). However, if its goal is to produce new knowl- unacceptable or violent pertained not only to sexuality but also edge about cultures, a study that is conceived at the intersec- to other cultural patterns. tion of cultures and that surprises subjects of a particular Other as speech evoking that Other’s “untold,” suppressed References content (and creates a political message as its secondary Abubakar, S. (2018). The Samoan side: How Sia Figiel debunks ori- byproduct), it is an original work of cultural anthropology entalism in Where We Once Belonged. International Journal of that bears the truth and as such is correct (valid and reliable), Asia Pacific Studies, 14(2), 105–120. https://doi.org/10.21315/ thick, and in no need of enrichment. ijaps2018.14.2.5 In the light of philosophy of education dealing with con- Baumrind, D. (1966). Effects of authoritative parental control on temporary education that can, inter alia, use findings of cul- child behavior. Child Development, 37(4), 887–907. https:// tural anthropology for its educational purposes, we have doi.org/10.2307/1126611 Baumrind, D. (1967). Child care practices anteceding three pat- pointed out that Mead’s descriptions of early childhood edu- terns of preschool behavior. Genetic Psychology Monographs, cation in Samoa at that time depict educational behavior that 75(1), 43–88. was clearly not permissive. About a century later, in relation Baumrind, D. (1971). Current patterns of parental authority. to contemporary permissive educational patterns of adult Developmental Psychology, 4(1, Pt.2), 1–103. https://doi. parents and teachers, CAS provides an intricate case study org/10.1037/h0030372 for understanding how even young girls as caregivers—sup- Bernstein, D. A. (2013). Parenting and teaching: What’s the con- ported by elders and patterns of culture—could hold the nection in our classrooms? Part one of two: How teaching place of the symbolic Law and maintain authoritative behav- styles can affect behavioral and educational outcomes in the ior toward younger children entrusted to them. classroom. Psychology Teacher Network, 23(2), 1–5. Côté, J., & Freeman, D. (2000). Was coming of age in Samoa based on a fateful hoaxing? A close look at Freeman’s claim based on Declaration of Conflicting Interests the Mead-Boas correspondence. Author’s reply: CA Forum on. The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect Current Anthropology, 41(4), 617–620. to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Dusi, P. (2012). The family-school relationships in Europe: A research review. Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 2(1), 13–33. Funding Errington, F. K., & Gewertz, D. B. (1987). Cultural alternatives The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support and a feminist anthropology: An analysis of culturally con- for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The structed gender interests in Papua New Guinea. Cambridge article was funded within the framework of the research programme University Press. Systemic Aspects of the Educational Strategies and Encouraging Freeman, D. (1983). Margaret Mead and Samoa: The making and Social Inclusion in Education (P5-0126), funded by Slovenian unmaking of an anthropological myth. Harvard University Research Agency. 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Child development and the fam- the Social Sciences, 43, 531–541. https://doi.org/10.1177/ ily. In W. & Damon, R. M. Series E. Lerner, & N. Eisenberg 0048393112444501 (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 3: Social, emo- Jarvie, I. (2017). Mead and the trajectory of anthropology in the tional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 429–504). United States. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 47, 359–369. John Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1177/0048393116654860 Paulson, S. E., Marchant, G. J., & Rothlisberg, B. A. (1998). Early Krek, J. (2015). Two principles of early moral education: A condi- adolescents’ perceptions of patterns of parenting, teaching, and tion for the law, reflection and autonomy. Studies in Philosophy school atmosphere: Implications for achievement. Journal of & Education, 34(1), 9–29. Early Adolescence, 18(1), 5. Krek, J. (2019). Structural reasons for school violence and educa- Pellerin, L. A. (2005). Applying Baumrind’s parenting typology to tion strategies. 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Écrits [Writings]. Seuil. 479–505. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-2006-002 Lacan, J. (1998). La Séminaire, livre V, Les formations de Shankman, P. (2009). The trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of l’inconscient [Seminar, Book V, Formations of the an anthropological controversy. University of Wisconsin Press. Unconscious]. Seuil. Stocking, G. W. (1989). The ethnographic sensibility of the 1920s. Lasch, C. (1979). The culture of narcissism: American life in an age In G. W. Stocking, Jr. (Ed.), Romantic motives: Essays on of diminishing expectations. W.W. Norton. anthropological sensibility (p. 286). University of Wisconsin Levy, R. I. (1984). Mead, Freeman, and Samoa: The problem of Press. seeing things as they are. Ethos, 12(1), 85–92. Strikwerda, R. (1991). Motivations, tactics, and audiences: Maccoby, E. E. (1992). The role of parents in the socialization of Anthropological responses to the Mead/Freeman controversy. children: A historical overview. Developmental Psychology, In D. 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Understanding the Discourse of Early Childhood Education in Coming of Age in Samoa:

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Abstract

The apparently readily comprehensible descriptive discourse in Margaret Mead’s famous ethnographic study Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) (CAS) presents a discursive challenge that is greater than one might expect from a book that has gained a wide readership. Through theoretical analysis, and in relation to the notorious Mead/Freeman controversy, we seek to contribute to understanding CAS as discourse, and even more specifically as educational discourse. Three research questions are addressed: How can the account of Samoan culture presented by Mead in CAS be understood as discourse? How can her account of early childhood education be understood in relation to Freeman’s account? Is Mead describing permissive education when describing patterns of early childhood education in Samoa? We argue that Mead produced an overlapping research discourse that has appealed to the wider public because of its cultural suppressed message aimed at the unconscious in culture. Mead’s and Freeman’s contradictory accounts of Samoan cultural patterns in relation to early childhood education can be explained by differences in the perspectives of the social and hierarchical positions of respectable elders and chiefs (Freeman) and of young girls who were caregivers of even younger children (Mead). Finally, we argue that early childhood education in Samoa at that time was clearly not permissive. Young Samoan girls internalized the symbolic Law (Lacan) and were therefore able to act in an authoritative way as caregivers. In the field of education nearly a century later, Mead’s descriptions of early childhood education in Samoa still provide an intricate case study. Keywords discourse, Margaret Mead, early childhood education, the unconscious in culture, authority cultural patterns in Samoa and questioned the scientific value Introduction of CAS, the Mead/Freeman controversy gave rise to a num- In her celebrated anthropological study Coming of Age in ber of discussions that, in short, revealed some of the short- Samoa (CAS; Mead, 1928), “one of the most influential comings of Mead’s study while exposing the unconvincing anthropological works of the twentieth century” (Stocking, nature of Freeman’s theses. It is sufficient to quote Lowell 1989), Margaret Mead analyzed the way young girls grew up Holmes, who, in 1954, completed a “methodological in Samoa in the mid-1920s and, within this context, the cul- restudy” of Mead’s work in Ta’u, concluding that, despite tural patterns of early childhood education. With this “famous some deficiencies, “the reliability of Mead’s account is apprentice book” (Kuper, 1989), she embarked on a career remarkably high” (Holmes, 1987, p. 314). that established her as “a symbol for the women’s move- With his criticism, Freeman in fact unwittingly encour- ment” (Strikwerda, 1991, p. 299). From the 1980s until aged numerous interpretations of CAS that would not other- recently, Mead’s anthropological study has, particularly wise have emerged, but that are indispensable for a thanks to the notorious critique by Derek Freeman (Freeman, contemporary reflective understanding of Mead’s study. 1983, 1999), been the subject of extensive discussion both However, as far as we can determine from the available among the broader public and in American anthropology and philosophy of science (Abubakar, 2018; Côté & Freeman, 2000; Freeman et al., 2014; Holmes, 1987; Jarvie, 2013, 1 Univerza v Ljubljani, Slovenia 2017; Levy, 1984; Mageo, 1988; Rappaport, 1986; Corresponding Author: Shankman, 2006, 2009; Va’a, 2008). In the decade of debates Janez Krek, Pedagoška fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Kardeljeva pl. 16, that followed the first Freeman critics (1983), in which he Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia. challenged the findings of Mead’s ethnographic study of Email: janez.krek@pef.uni-lj.si Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 SAGE Open sources, the interpretations to date have not highlighted how understanding CAS in general as discourse, and more spe- understanding the discourse in CAS requires a knowledge cifically as educational discourse. not only of anthropological theories and insights but also of linguistic, educational, and other theories or concepts. Nor Theoretical Background and have they identified how the intercultural, overlapping dis- Research Questions course of CAS contributes to its scientific originality. In his assessment of the Mead/Freeman controversy, pub- Based on the example of the description of early childhood lished in the journal Nature, Kuper (1989) points out that education in Mead’s ethnographic study, our aim is to dem- Mead triggered a questioning of anthropology regarding onstrate why and how the apparently readily comprehensible “ethnographic fieldwork and writing” (p. 454), which is descriptive discourse of CAS presents a discursive chal- Mead’s characteristic method of research. Freeman claimed lenge. However, CAS is a study of growing up and therefore that he could refute Mead by opposing “his observations to also requires the introduction of educational theories and hers” (Kuper, 1989, p. 455); however, this is a fundamental concepts. To understand questions of education, anthropol- methodological and discursive error of his critique. Factual ogy needs to employ educational theories for understanding claims are always interpretations of facts, as their meaning descriptions of human symbolic reality, that is, cultural pat- emerges only within a certain discursive, symbolic network. terns of education and how these patterns, as a symbolic real- In relation to observation in ethnographic fieldwork and ity, have an influence (through interpersonal relationships writing, this means, as Kuper (1989) puts it, that “no obser- and education) on the formation of the personality of chil- vation is neutral; no observer can free him or herself from dren and adolescents. constraints imposed by culture, status and life history” In addition to various authors and texts from the field of (p. 455). Moreover, any research (not only observation) is cultural anthropology, the present theoretical study therefore also dependent on scientific theories and concepts that enable has two additional conceptual backgrounds: in the discourse questions and understanding, as well as the possible explicit analysis of CAS, we primarily follow the psychoanalytical or hidden assumptions of the research. Therefore, scientific theory of Freud and his French successor Lacan, according enquiry, and ethnographic enquiry in particular, is a process to which the structure of personality in a human being is that includes the “observer and writer” (as a research agency, formed with the entry to language through discourse or, in his or her research object, questions, theories, specific the terminology of cultural anthropology, through patterns of research methods, specific knowledge and culture, etc.) and culture. Lacan followed the assumption of Freud’s theory the “community of others” (experts and natives), who are that the human personality is divided into the conscious and indispensable for approaching truth and understanding. This the unconscious with the thesis that the unconsciousness— does not mean that ethnography is caught in a vicious circle unconscious thinking, comprehension, feeling, perception, of total relativity and endless debate. There is an “authority emotions, and so on—is formed through the Other as dis- in ethnography, one which is not necessarily embodied in any course (Lacan, 1966). The division between the permitted one account, but which is emergent in the process of expert and the prohibited, between the external and the internal, that research, comparison, evaluation and debate” (Kuper, 1989, functions within discourse is the sociocultural foundation of p. 455; author’s emphasis). individual unconsciousness. In our interpretation of the cul- As we approach the centenary of the publication of a tural patterns of education in CAS, we also use the educa- book that has “enjoyed substantial classroom adoption for tional theories developed by Baumrind (Baumrind, 1966, decades” (Rappaport, 1986, p. 324), and in view of 1967, 1971) and others (Bernstein, 2013; Dusi, 2012; Freeman’s criticism—which was intended to undermine Maccoby, 1992; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Parke & Buriel, Mead’s status—and the subsequent debates, the question 2006; Paulson et al., 1998; Pellerin, 2005), in which educa- arises as to whether the text still justifies treatment in uni- tional behaviors and types of authority are correlated with versity courses today. We believe that, in the contemporary specific personality structures. world, the text still provides an intriguing starting point for Anthropological debates tackling the Mead/Freeman con- study at the intersection of cultural anthropology and edu- troversy have mainly highlighted various questions from the cation precisely because it requires interpretation. Our the- point of view of the “truth of ethnographic facts” and the sis is that these debates—albeit after the author’s death, scientific nature of ethnographic research methodology. Our decades after the publication of the book, and often contrary research contributes to these discussions with an interpreta- to the intentions of the criticism and responses—have tion of the discourse that Mead employs in CAS, and our first revealed that the text, despite its shortcomings, is discur- research question concerns how we can understand Mead’s sively complex and challenging for interpretation. The chal- account of Samoan culture in CAS as a whole as discourse. lenge of understanding the open questions in CAS is greater The second and the third research questions are posed than one might expect from discourse in a book that has specifically from the perspective of education, the philoso- gained a wide readership. With the present contribution to phy of education, and educational theories. In describing existing interpretations, we seek to contribute to early childhood education of the time in Samoa, Mead Krek 3 assumes that she is describing early childhood education that independent of the discipline of anthropology” “is unpersua- is less violent, less demanding, less repressive, and more sive” (Strikwerda, 1991, p. 301). We concur that any “sepa- casual than education in Western societies at the same time. ration” of CAS from either science or anthropology is not a Mead’s descriptive discourse describing early childhood pertinent “solution” of the Mead/Freeman controversy. On education in Samoa in the mid-1920s and Freeman’s appar- the contrary, such a defense of CAS exposes an even greater ently contradictory observations refer to education; however, demand for close reading and interpretation in relation to they are not “merely” descriptions, but accounts of the pat- CAS as discourse that pertains to scientific truth. Strikwerda terns of education in Samoa. We want to show that under- (1991) maintains that “insofar as anthropologists used CAS standing both “descriptive discourse” (Mead) and and other of Mead’s books in their intro courses, because as “observations” (Freeman) as discursive facts and perspec- Goodenough claims, ‘They turned students on’, they are tives requires educational theories and concepts that make it implicated in the controversy” and in “a lack of responsibil- possible to better understand ethnographic content about a ity for one’s student audience” (p. 302). It is precisely the specific past. Therefore, the second research question con- question of what it is in the discourse of CAS that “turns cerns how to understand Mead’s account of early childhood students on” that requires closer interpretation. education in relation to Freeman’s account, specifically in Rappaport defended CAS as capable of referring to an relation to authority in education. American myth and of generating new, different, alternative The distant past sometimes enables a better understanding mythical messages, meaning that, “as a myth,” it carries the of the cultural patterns of contemporary society. As it turns truth within itself. However, even if CAS did produce mythi- out, today, almost a hundred years later, educational issues cal understanding and effects, the discourse itself is not are relevant from the opposite perspective to which they mythical discourse; it is scientific ethnography, with dis- were probably viewed by Mead. Not in relation to the course that is largely on the level of descriptions, describing Freeman’s critique but in the perspective of cultural patterns patterns of culture, including patterns of early childhood of permissive education in our contemporary societies, we education. Needless to say, interpretation requires an under- pose the third question: When describing patterns of early standing of the theoretical backgrounds of the study (i.e., the childhood education in Samoa, is Mead describing patterns cultural anthropology of Boas, Benedict, etc.; the universal- of permissive education? ist psychological claim of that era regarding adolescence as a period of storm and stress; Freudian psychoanalytic con- cepts), as well as educational theories that enable an under- Findings With Discussion standing of authority in education, and so on. However, if the discourse of CAS does have the potential to appeal to a naïve Understanding Mead’s Account of the reader, it is precisely its descriptive parts that require atten- Culture in Samoa in CAS as Discourse tion and reflection (more than her explanations of the find- Anthropologists and the wider (American) public would ings). The interpretative problem of CAS and understanding agree that the main lines of CAS were familiar to generations its discourse require exposing the cultural assumptions that of readers, including millions of students in the United States work “behind” Mead’s description of behavior in Samoa, for (Kuper, 1989). Why has this study—and not, for instance, instance, her description of Samoan “early childhood educa- Mead’s sober ethnography of Samoa, Social Organization of tion,” of Samoan “formal sex relations,” and so on. Manu’a (Mead, 1930/1969)—resonated so much and so long In general, Rappaport and many others (Errington & among the American public? In a very insightful defense of Gewertz, 1987; Marcus & Fischer, 1986) have pointed out CAS, Rappaport (1986) pointed out that as science CAS is these cultural assumptions of Mead. As he writes, Mead’s “not so much incorrect as thin and in need of enrichment, it ethnographic chapters offered an account of a society in did make a modest contribution to Samoan ethnography” (p. which childhood and adolescence were much easier for most 347). Rappaport (1986) locates the true significance of CAS people, a society with more permissive conventions of sex in how it both supported and coincided with the American and more egalitarian relations between men and women mythos, evoking alternatives in the cultural imagination, (Rappaport, 1986, p. 323). The social conventions of Mead’s and, as such a myth, he suggests it served Americans well contemporary Western societies form the background of the insofar as its messages are “humane and liberating” (p. 347). discourse of CAS, and it is through the depiction of such dif- However, Strikwerda rightly points out that the separation of ferences that Mead offered an alternative vision of society. the factual from the mythical and the separation of the dis- Indeed, CAS does not propose an alternative directly; it course of CAS (with its relation to the American mythos) “only” describes different social patterns of a different cul- from the discipline of anthropology as scientific discourse ture. Besides, its “mythical lesson” in relation to change in are dubious. No facts can be regarded “simply as ‘observable society is anti-mythical: Patterns of culture are “culturally state of affairs’; also facts are ‘substantiated or proven relative.” If it is characteristic of myth “to represent the spe- claims’” (Strikwerda, 1991, p. 301). Furthermore, the impli- cifically cultural or conventional as both natural and sacred” cation that “this myth works at the level of American culture, (Rappaport, 1986, p. 323), the lesson of Mead’s ethnography 4 SAGE Open is that our own ways are not humanly inevitable, not God- internalized cultural norms, generates this absence from the ordained, but the result of our symbolic, discursive universe content of objectified descriptions. of human culture. It is not that such understandings are any If we want to understand the true extent of Mead’s dis- less important in our contemporary globalized world; the course in CAS, that which is the discursive subjective truth, point to be understood here regarding the descriptive nature it is necessary to introduce the difference between statement of CAS’s language as discourse is that, on the surface, it is and enunciation—otherwise common in linguistics—in a descriptive, “documentary,” but it is not a mythical dis- specific psychoanalytic sense (Lacan, 1966; Žižek, 2012), course. Not even Freeman claims that it amounts to a myth; according to which enunciation is the place at which the sub- he claims that it is mistaken because it omits what he could ject of the unconscious is uttered. In Lacanian theory, the observe. What is omitted? In the chapters that Freeman unconscious is situated in discourse (the Other), as reflected (1983) wrote on childrearing and punishment (Chapters 13 in his famous phrase, “the unconscious is structured like a and 14), he claims that there is strong mother–child bonding language.” It is through the act of enunciation that we have in Samoa, that parental discipline is severe, and that there is access to the unconscious in the psychoanalytic sense. a high level of aggression and violence toward children and Therefore, the unconscious should not be understood as adolescents. He does not, however, argue that Mead’s something that is “deeply hidden” in a particular human descriptions of early childhood education are wrong; if they being; rather, it is a discursive phenomenon, it exists on its are inadequate, it is because of the discursive presence of surface; for instance, it emerges in the act of enunciation something that he is missing in the descriptions. through internalized cultural norms. Lacan (1966) writes that Again, it is possible, as Freeman probably does, to under- “the presence of the unconscious, being situated in the locus stand this absence as a methodological failure of the selec- of the Other, can be found in every discourse, in its enuncia- tion procedure, that is, that it is not sufficiently objective in tion” (p. 834). the reality of obtaining, selecting, and presenting data (due to Through the discourse of CAS, the unconscious truth Mead’s subjective desire to “find” a culture with less violent emerges only from within the gap between the enunciated or repressive education). However, with different selection, content (for instance, Mead’s objectivized presentations of and with Freeman’s additional “data and observation,” are “Samoan early childhood education,” “sex relations,” etc.) we actually reading an objective account of Samoan early and the subjective position of enunciation (the “absent” pat- childhood education? Of course not. His criteria for analysis terns of violence, discipline, severe parental control, etc.). are again subjective, as his key references for selection are The truth emerges as a surprise from within the reader’s own explicitly Mead’s own findings and the generalizations in embeddedness in Western patriarchal culture, through com- CAS that he is trying to refute. The key for selection is find- parison with his or her own patterns of education. ing cases that prove his different generalizations. In both For instance, according to Mead’s (1928) description of cases, however, the results are not simply “descriptions,” but early childhood education in the chapter “The Education of two different accounts of culture, including early childhood the Samoan Child” (pp. 16–28), the education and socializa- education. To a certain extent, they are probably both right. tion of children after weaning was the responsibility mainly As Kuper (1989) writes, “Freeman may be presenting the of girls from 6 or 7 years of age onward. Adolescent girls point of view of respectable elders, while Mead (who partici- were “released from baby-tending” (Mead, 1928, p. 21). pated mainly in the lives of the adolescent girls) may be gen- Mead writes that “from the birth until the age of four or five eralizing from what was an informal sub-culture” (p. 25). a child’s education is exceedingly simple” (Mead, 1928, However, if we were satisfied with this conclusion, we would p. 18). There were only a limited number of rules, “really simply miss the essential difference between these two simply a series of avoidances” (Mead, 1928, p. 18), that they accounts as discourses. The assumption of Freeman’s objec- had to learn and internalize in their first few years: tivity discourse is that by adding opposing observations, it They must be housebroken . . . They must learn to sit or crawl rejects the findings and key theses of Mead’s research. within the house and never to stand upright unless it is absolutely However, even the facts do not speak for themselves, they necessary; never to address an adult in a standing position; to have to be substantiated (Kuper, 1989; Levy, 1984; stay out of the sun; not to tangle the strands of the weaver; not to Strikwerda, 1991). Also Mead’s discourse is conceived as an scatter the cut-up cocoanut which is spread out to dry; to keep objective assessment, but it is more complex than it appears their scant loin clothes at least nominally fastened to their from its objective, descriptive character. Through, on the persons; to treat fire and knives with proper caution; if their first level, the objective description of reality, the discourse father is a chief, not to crawl on his bed place when he is by. evokes what is absent from it, what does not exist in the These are really simply a series of avoidances, enforced by descriptions, even though the reader would expect it to be occasional cuffing and a deal of exasperated shouting and present. That which is “absent” is the “concealed” subjective ineffectual conversation. (Mead, 1928, p. 18) truth of the discourse; for the reader, it is the “genuine truth,” the true message. This is because its subject, that which “cre- For a reader raised in a patriarchal, authoritarian culture of ates” the discursive presence of absence, is the reader him- violence, these and other descriptions of early childhood self or herself, that is, the reader, subjected to his or her own education in CAS indicate childhood education with an Krek 5 absence of the violence “familiar to the reader.” The absence in Samoa), he himself creates the opposite overgeneraliza- of certain cultural patterns in Western culture is perhaps even tion of Samoan culture, a kind of mirror images of the gener- more apparent through the presence of descriptions in alizations in CAS. The essential difference between the two Chapter 7, which relate to formal sexual relations, that is, studies is therefore in originality and in the fact that Western through the descriptions of romantic love encounters of culture is the starting point of the research while being its young people under palm trees, the promiscuous sexuality of basis and the reverse side of the discourse in CAS (its subjec- adolescents of both genders before marriage, the carefree tive position of enunciation). We should note, however, that attitude toward faithfulness in marriage, the fact that the Mead does not try to define “American national character.” taboo of virginity only applies to taupou and not to the rest of Her starting point is individual traits of this culture, the traits the girls, and so on. that she perceives as overly repressive in relation to educa- Insufficiencies on the level of scientific striving for objec- tion, sexuality, and so on. It is in this area that Mead takes tivity are, at the same time, the advantage of such ethno- aim very precisely. Many theoretical and analytical parts of graphic enquiry, resulting in the emergence of the subject of the text are, from today’s theoretical and methodological per- unconsciousness that is inscribed in objectivized scientific spective, probably naïve or flawed. However, the originality discourse. It is the gap in the discourse between the enunci- of the discourse in CAS is in its descriptive parts, in that, due ated content (descriptions) and the subjective position of to the subjective criteria of certain patterns of Western cul- enunciation (that which it produces in the descriptions as ture, the discursive descriptions of cultural and behavioral absent) that is key to the truth. Mead produced a double- patterns in Samoa recognize a difference, which is perceived coined research discourse: on the surface, mostly a descrip- by readers enculturated in the cultural norms of the West. tive discourse, but a discourse that “turned students on” The discourse of CAS evokes what these norms “miss.” The because of its cultural suppressed message, which emerges subjective truth of the discourse is structured as the evoca- through what is recognized as absent in it. However, the tion of the “collective unconscious” of Western culture, but place from which this absence is “objectivized” as truthful— not of its “whole,” not of collective “national character,” but valid and reliable—is not Mead, but the reader himself or merely of its individual elements, that is, patriarchal, repres- herself. Within objective descriptions of cultural patterns of sive authoritarian patterns. The subjective truth of the dis- education that appear as less violent, less demanding, and course in CAS may explain why the book has been so less repressive (in comparison with Western patriarchal edu- successful among generations of readers over the decades, cational culture of that period) emerge the subjective truth of but this can only arise through the objectivity of scientific the discourse: that different cultural patterns exist, that they discourse whose goal is truth. are therefore possible, and so on (and that “I can bear witness to and recognize this through what I have missed in my own Understanding CAS’s Educational Discourse experience”). Of course, this “humane and liberating” mes- in Relation to Freeman’s Account of Education sage of the discourse is deeply political. CAS is a piece of in Samoa scholarship, but its advantage is that it is not afraid of placing itself in relation to the field of cultural politics, or to put it We now come to the second research question and the field differently, as has been already noted, it does not place itself of education. Mead’s question was whether adolescence was “outside politics” (Strikwerda, 1991, p. 303). necessarily a period of conflict and stress due to the inescap- Kuper (1989) writes that “the consensus among anthro- able biological processes of puberty or whether this was the pologists is that both Mead and Freeman over-generalized in result of culture, that is, the specific cultural pressures caused characterizing the ‘ethos’ of Samoan Culture; in any case, by patterns of American culture. According to Mead, adoles- defining national character is a hopelessly subjective and cent girls in Samoa seemed to have an untroubled passage to impressionistic project, which most contemporary anthro- maturity in general. However, she also found exceptions to pologists have abandoned” (p. 23). Indeed, in CAS, we find the rule: a few sulky, angry girls. Her conclusion was that the generalized definitions of the “ethos” of Samoan Culture, storm and stress of American adolescence was a culture-spe- which may be understood as defining a “national character.” cific phenomenon, largely caused by cultural patterns and For instance, Mead (1928) depicted patterns of life in Samoa the intense pressures of family life. Freeman disagrees with (on the island of Taū, in the Manu’a Archipelago in the mid- most of Mead’s ethnographic generalizations. According to 1920s) in general as contrasted with America, but also with his account, early childhood education in Samoa is charac- “most primitive civilizations,” with Samoa’s “casual attitude terized by strong mother–child bonding and severe parental towards life,” “avoidance of conflict, of poignant situations” discipline, and there is a high level of aggression and vio- (p. 138). From the perspective of contemporary methodolog- lence in childhood and later. Apparently, we are confronted ical criteria of qualitative and ethnographic enquiry, there are with two contradictory accounts of patterns of Samoan cul- many such overgeneralizations in CAS. As these generaliza- ture, especially in relation to education and sex. tions in CAS are the fundamental starting points of Freeman’s Mead’s research question as to whether adolescence is research and discourse (not an objective analysis of culture necessarily a period of conflict and stress has been surpassed 6 SAGE Open today. The question that is interesting from the point of view is markedly authoritarian and depends directly on a system of of ethnographic research is how to understand the findings of severe discipline . . .” (Freeman, 1983, p. 209). However, these two apparently contradictory accounts of culture in Freeman’s emphasis on the attachment between child and Samoa, assuming that both of them fail to provide a full mother in the first years of childhood does not contradict any- account, and yet have certain ethnographic accuracy and thing described in CAS. Similarly, the examples of violence merit. that he describes do not prove that Mead’s descriptions are Answers to such questions require the introduction of incorrect. educational theories or theories that enable an understanding Freeman implicitly establishes a link between patterns of of educational discourse, that is, an understanding of descrip- punishment, as he describes them himself, and the hierarchi- tions of certain typical behaviors of those who educate, cal nature of society, on one hand, and the repressive patterns descriptions of relationships between children and those who of culture and education, on the other. Therefore, the ques- educate, and descriptions of the general cultural patterns that tion emerges in relation to CAS: If Mead’s descriptions of establish and shape these relationships, as well as the author- early childhood education are right, does the reduced signifi- ity of parents and caregivers in relation to children. cance of strict—or purely physical—punishment in educa- In Freeman’s (1983) critique, two chapters are directly tion necessarily mean that education is nonauthoritative, associated with education: “Punishment” and “Childrearing.” noncoercive? Freeman demonstrates that culture and education in Samoa It is necessary to resort to the help of educational theories in the 1920s were more hierarchical and repressive than and concepts to be able to interpret the apparent contradic- depicted by Mead. In line with this, he writes at the begin- tion between cases of violence and authoritarianism ning of the chapter entitled “Punishment”: (Freeman), on one hand, and the prevailing absence of vio- lence in early education (2–6 years of age) described in CAS, on the other. In the second half of the 20th century, consider- Samoan society as depicted by Mead was neither severe not able attention was focused on authoritarianism and concepts punitive. Rather, so she asserted, the Samoans inhabit a social order that “is kind to all and does not make sufficient demands of authority in the educational context. In her initial studies upon any.” These assertions are inaccurate and misleading. of authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative parenting in (Freeman, 1983, p. 191) the 1960s and 1970s (Baumrind, 1966, 1967, 1971), Baumrind constructed a concept of permissive indulgent par- In contrast to Mead’s depiction of Samoa’s gentle culture, ents (as she called them in her early research), who are emo- Freeman (1983) describes various cases of punishment and tional, caring, and involved, but tend to be extremely tolerant hierarchical order in Samoan society. However, in this chap- and exercise little or no control and discipline. Baumrind ter, he describes mostly patterns of punishment in adult life found that, in many respects, children of permissive parents in Samoa, not in early childhood education, with the implica- did not differ significantly from children of authoritarian par- tion that cases of frequent severe punishment reflect general ents. Authoritarian parents are severe, demanding, intolerant, patterns of culture. Freeman (1983) mentions that “the autocratic, nonresponsive, and punitive. In contrast to both, Samoan term for obedience, usiusita’i, refers specifically to authoritative parents are firm but fair and establish demands the action of listening to an instruction and then unquestion- and discipline in an atmosphere of care. Baumrind’s research ingly carrying it out,” and this obedience “is greatly lauded, showed that authoritative behavior of parents is linked to especially in untitled men, members of the ‘aumaga, whose independent, purposive behavior in children and that authori- principal obligation is to serve the chiefs . . .” (p. 192). In tative parental control is clearly associated with all social 1941, this cultural pattern was mentioned in court in the responsibility indices in boys compared with authoritarian defense of seven such untitled men who assaulted a man in and permissive parental control, as well as being associated their village, with the claim that they were merely “blindly with high achievement in girls (Baumrind, 1971). obeying” the edicts of their chiefs as Samoan custom The results of recent studies show the same basic patterns required. The position of an educator who demands blind (Bernstein, 2013; Dusi, 2012; Kuhar & Reiter, 2013; obedience corresponds to the authoritarian type of authority. Maccoby, 1992; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Parke & Buriel, It means that my Command is the Law, that the meaning of a 2006; Paulson et al., 1998; Pellerin, 2005). In a meta-study Law is defined through that which the chiefs, as its bearers, of 1,435 studies that identified a relationship between family say it is. education models and externalized symptoms in children and In the next chapter “Childrearing,” explicitly referring to adolescents, Pinquart finds that parental warmth, behavioral Bowlby’s attachment theory, Freeman argues that mother– control, autonomy granting, and an authoritative parenting child attachment is much closer than Mead suggests when she style showed very small to small negative concurrent and emphasizes how, within a Samoan extended family, an infant longitudinal associations with externalizing problems. In is succored by “women of all ages and none of them have contrast, harsh control, psychological control, and authori- disciplined it.” In the concluding sections, he summarizes his tarian, permissive, and neglectful parenting were associated observations, saying that “Samoan social organization, then, with higher levels of externalizing problems (Pinquart, Krek 7 2017). Thus, the violent behavior of children resulting from and through its enforcement (for instance, through education permissive education can be added to authoritarian (often and also punishment). Based on particular Samoan cultural also physical) violence in education as a cause of “external- norms, the Law existed as the symbolic Law in discourse, izing problems” (Krek, 2019). According to Mead, adoles- mediated “through the chiefs” and its actual enforcement cent girls in Samoa had an untroubled passage to maturity, through all elders with regard to younger people, including and their adolescence was not a period of conflict and stress. girls who were in charge of younger children. How can we understand her findings through the concepts of Freeman’s point of departure is the position of respectable recent empirical research on authority in education? It would elders, and as evidence he describes the authoritarian action follow that neither authoritarian nor permissive patterns pre- of chiefs in relation to untitled men. The education practiced vailed in early childhood education in Samoa at the time of by the young girls with regard to the young children entrusted her research. Could we therefore understand early childhood to them also had elements of coercion, but their educational education as being predominantly authoritative? behavior, means of coercion, and authority differed signifi- In his classic study The Culture of Narcissism (Lasch, cantly from the behavior, authority, and power of the chiefs. 1979), Lasch links permissiveness with “the absence of the If we place the descriptions of both anthropologists in the father” and “the abdication” or “the breakdown of authority” context of theories of authority in education, these differ- in contemporary society. For instance, following Rogow, ences in the behavior and type of authority of the two sub- Lasch (1979) finds that American parents are alternatively groups within a particular community come as no surprise. “permissive and wavering” (p. 178) in their behavior with Both Mead’s and Freeman’s descriptions may be appropriate young people and find that it is easier to achieve conformity in terms of the scientific criteria of validity and reliability; if they submit to bribery than if they deal with the emotional what is mistaken is Freeman’s understanding that the second agitation associated with repressing the child’s demands. To perspective undermines the first. The differences in the understand this in Freudian terms, the pleasure principle can descriptions and facts that the two authors highlight in the itself lead parents to permissive behaviors: They do every- field of education are (more or less) a reflection of the real thing in order not to have to “deal with emotional agitation” differences between these two subgroups in their hierarchi- in relation to the child and not to perform an action that cal position and differences in gender, age, and socially should follow as a confrontation to the child’s resistance to expected behavior. their posed expectations. Referring to Rose in his analysis, Lasch (1979) writes, “Some parents, for example, are inca- Cultural Patterns of Early Childhood Education pable of such things as putting the child to bed if the child in Samoa at the Beginning of the Previous protests or is not able to contain his or her aggressiveness . . Century: Was It Permissive? .” (p. 166). Obviously, the point here is not so much con- nected with the content of the norm or rule, as with the CAS’s educational discourse of early childhood raises a inability, the incapacity, of parents to implement, to impose, third research question relevant to contemporary educational a particular norm or rule in relation to the child. Parents are practice: If early childhood education in Samoa was as Mead aware of what they “want” or what they “should do,” but described it in the chapter “The Education of the Samoan they nevertheless “give in,” they do not insist on the demand Child,” does it follow that education in Samoa was permis- set. In Lacanian psychoanalytic terms, the key consequence sive? To answer this question, we have to ask how these few of this specific subjective uncertainty of parents is the rules were conceived and implemented by the young educa- absence of the symbolic Law in their speech and in education tors themselves, that is, by girls as their agents. acts. The absence of the symbolic Law in discourse is a key On one hand, there are Mead’s descriptions of their trait of permissiveness. actions, which on first glance might be understood as per- Following this criterion, how can we understand Mead’s missive behavior in education due to their nonviolent char- description of early childhood education in Samoa? acter. These rules were “enforced by occasional cuffing and In Freeman’s account, Samoan society of that period was, a deal of exasperated shouting and ineffectual conversa- of course, not a permissive society. To be precise, however, tion.” The shouting (“Come out of the sun,” “Keep still,” in Lacanian terms, through authoritarian patterns of culture, “Sit still,” “Keep your mouths shut,” etc.) was depicted by he is describing the Law of jouissance, enjoyment, that, at Mead as “uttered quite mechanically,” whereas the require- least in the male part of the culture, also functioned as irratio- ment of silence is “continually mentioned and never nal enjoyment, through unquestionable, irresistible Super- enforced” (Mead, 1928, p. 18). Children responsible for Ego command. However, it does not follow from this that the even younger children feared the disagreeable conse- symbolic Law was absent in the social fabric. Quite the oppo- quences resulting from a child’s crying, so that “long after site. Both Mead and Freeman describe the society’s hierar- there is any need for it, they succumb to some little tyrant’s chical structures, from which we may conclude that the threat of making a scene and five-year-olds bully their way existence of the symbolic Law was a cultural pattern of into expeditions of which they will have to be carried . . .” Samoan society, existing in the discourse of Samoan custom (Mead, 1928, p. 19). 8 SAGE Open On the other hand, Mead (1928) writes that The question of contemporary permissiveness is not so much a question of physical violence or nonviolence toward this method of giving in, coaxing, bribing, diverting of infant the child, but a question of whether the symbolic Law exists disturbers is only pursued within the household or the or does not exist in discourse and in education as action. In relationship group, where there are duly constituted elders in Samoa at that time, small children were not brought up by authority to punish the older children who can’t keep the babies adult men, and not even by their mothers or other adult still. Towards a neighbor’s children or in a crowd of half-grown women. What is important, however, is that all children— girls and boys even the adults vent their full irritation upon the boys and girls—aged 2 to 6 years were brought up by girls heads of troublesome children. If a crowd of children are near with similar patterns of upbringing, which were certainly not enough, pressing in curiously to watch some spectacle at which as authoritarian or violent as parents often could be in societ- they are not wanted, they are soundly lashed with palm leaves, ies in the United States at the time. However, these girls did or dispersed with a shower of small stones, of which the house not practice care for young children in the way contemporary floor always furnishes a ready supply . . . . And even these bursts of anger are nine-tenths gesture. No one who throws the stones permissiveness does; while imposing the cultural norms of actually means to hit the child, but the children know that if they their culture, they held the place of the symbolic Law. repeat their intrusions too often, by the laws of chance some of the flying bits of corals will land in their faces. (p. 19) Conclusion Through this study, Mead interprets, at least to a certain However, “by the time a child is six or seven she has all the extent, the state of her own culture (United States) at the essential avoidances well enough by heart to be trusted with time. It is therefore possible to understand the study pub- the care of a younger child. And she also develops some sim- lished by Mead in its entirety as a text whose fundamental ple techniques” (Mead, 1928, p. 20). Girls were able to goal is not only to provide a description of culture in Samoa undertake the task of early education and socialization but also to offer an interpretation of patterns of Western cul- because, by the age of 6 or 7, they had internalized the ture: Mead’s own Western culture is “reassessed” through norms—the “series of avoidances”—of Samoan culture. The descriptions of culture in Samoa, descriptions that serve as pattern of education also implied that a child was further the “other” of Western culture. Mead’s book enjoyed such “disciplined and socialized through responsibility for a still incredible success among readers because it showed the hid- younger one” (Mead, 1928, p. 19). From this chapter and den side of their own culture, the reverse perspective, and elsewhere, it is clear that the hierarchical organization of because it responded to the problems of their own society. society was in place. As early as in the 1960s, Mead was aware of various criti- For the operation of the “father function” or “symbolic cisms, including Freeman’s, and of the possible different Law” (Lacan, 1998, pp. 179–196) in moral education, the views on the culture of a particular community. In the final relationship of the caregiver toward her own words is crucial. chapter of the reissue of Social Organization of Manu’a in Were the young Samoan caregiver’s own words the law for 1969, she writes, “There is a serious problem of reconciling themselves? Did their discourse and acts express a certainty these contradictions between the mildness, the willingness to of belief in those “simple” avoidances? We do not doubt that gloss over and compromise, which I found in Manu’a and in both accounts of Samoan society of that period—Mead’s other records of historical and contemporary behavior” and Freeman’s—the answers should be positive. The girls, (Mead, 1930/1969, p. 227). She explains that these differ- young caregivers, were submitted to moral restraint, and at ences are accounted for by her specific perspective, the par- the age of 7, they were able to pass that symbolic instance on ticular locus in which she placed herself when describing to even younger children. Samoan culture in CAS: “the vantage point from which I saw In Samoa of that period, the process of symbolic identifi- it” (Mead, 1930/1969, p. 228) was the position of a young cation with adults, through which the child arrives at the girl. The difference between Freeman’s point of view of internalization of the symbolic order, was undoubtedly func- respectable elders and Mead’s of adolescent girls is the tioning, meaning that the Ego-Ideal, as an internalized objective difference in the social position of the subgroup, instance of the symbolic Law, had been initiated. Young girls that is, those who educate, which is reflected in education as did not function as a kind of “omnipotent” other who is the difference between two contrasting modes of educational always there and satisfies the Demand of the child (Krek, behavior and types of authority. 2015). In response to the narcissistic demand of youngsters, The originality of CAS as scientific work lies in the con- they did not act violently, but stubbornly. They were not ception of its two overlapping discourses. On one hand, CAS severe or even obsessively cruel representatives of the pat- follows the criteria of cultural anthropology as a science with terns of culture, but, while allowing the explorations of its own domain of study, appropriate techniques, and meth- youngsters, they were persistent in repeating again and again ods producing valid and reliable knowledge in the domain; at precisely the symbolic norms of the society, the paternal law the same time, however, it is a product of anthropology as (Krek & Zabel, 2017). As bearers of early childhood educa- cultural critique (of patriarchal, authoritarian Western cul- tion, they were clearly not permissive; even at a very young ture), a discourse in its own right with its own criteria of age, they were able to be authoritative. Krek 9 validity and reliability. The power of “cultural critique” ORCID iD stems not so much from Mead’s explicit, “subjective” critical Janez Krek https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5827-7609 comments, which we also find in the text, but from the objec- tivized scientific descriptions of Samoan culture that simul- Notes taneously relate to the unconscious truth of a particular 1. We should note that he is mainly not referring to the data for culture, a particular Other: Western culture. We have discov- the period of time of Mead’s research, but for later decades. ered that, through the discourse of CAS, the unconscious Although this is not insignificant for the value of his argument, truth emerges only from the gap between Mead’s objectiv- for our argument it is not of crucial importance. ized presentations of “Samoan early childhood education,” 2. Freeman has not tried to provide any alternative theory on ado- “sex relations,” and so on and, for readers embedded in lescence, and he does not oppose the idea that conflict and Western culture, the absent patterns of violence, discipline, stress are not inevitable and universal in adolescence, which severe parental control, and so in those descriptions. The was Mead’s general conclusion. point here is that the second discourse (the truth of the uncon- 3. Types, possibilities, and prohibitions in the area of sexual rela- tionships among youth and adults—although they were more scious) had its own validity and reliability for its readers, and strictly regulated, as Mead describes, within the context of because of that “piece of truth,” which is nevertheless essen- bringing up children, whereby children up to 7 years of age are tial, CAS generated the interest of a wider audience in a sci- brought up by girls, or a girl, aged from 7 to 14 years, and in entific anthropological study. the formation of the fundamental structure of the personality in From the perspective of cultural anthropology as a social early youth—are not relevant in this context. science that should produce objective, extensive information 4. On entering puberty, a Samoan girl had more possibilities, as and knowledge about particular cultures, CAS could be Mead would say, to experiment than a girl in Western culture at regarded as a piece of scientific work that is “not so much the time. Moreover, this freedom and the possibility of escap- incorrect as thin and in need of enrichment” (Rappaport, ing from a particular situation that the individual perceived as 1986, p. 347). However, if its goal is to produce new knowl- unacceptable or violent pertained not only to sexuality but also edge about cultures, a study that is conceived at the intersec- to other cultural patterns. tion of cultures and that surprises subjects of a particular Other as speech evoking that Other’s “untold,” suppressed References content (and creates a political message as its secondary Abubakar, S. (2018). The Samoan side: How Sia Figiel debunks ori- byproduct), it is an original work of cultural anthropology entalism in Where We Once Belonged. 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Published: Jan 26, 2020

Keywords: discourse; Margaret Mead; early childhood education; the unconscious in culture; authority

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