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Resituating the place of educational discourse in anthropology.

This critical essay examines the place of educational discourse in contemporary anthropology. I address the growing influ- ence of “cultural studies” frameworks in anthropology-especially in research on popular culture, media, and identity- and the corresponding neglect of specifically educational discourses and practices, in and out of schools. To illustrate, I briefly examine recent research by four noted cultural anthropologists who mention the effects of schools at their field sites but pay insufficient attention to complex educational discourses and practices. Then I address the reasons why most con- temporary anthropologists outside the subfield of “anthropology of education” ignore or downplay the role of modem schools in structuring identities and power relations, both locally and globally. I end with a programmatic synthesis: to rec- ognize and account for the continuing power of schools in most contemporary ethnographic sites, even as we broaden our vision of “education” and extend our analytic tools well beyond schools. This resituating of educational discourse in an- thropology might accomplish two important things. First, it could arrest the trend toward subfield specialization and pro- vide a more unifying research program. Second, it would promote anthropology’s renewed engagement with some of the most pressing problems of democracy and public policy, fostering an organic link between our multiple roles as teachers, researchers, and institutional actors.