Educational anthropology as a major approach for educational research: The beginnings and the evolution of educational anthropology, with an overview of its introduction in the Greek educational context

Abstract

This article is presenting and investigating the input of social and cultural anthropology in educational research. Moreover, the cultural focus is on Greece and Greek educational institutions. Socio-cultural anthropology offers a multiplicity of alternative pathways to the investigation of ‘who we are’ and why we behave the way we do through the study of cultures and institutions different from ours. The anthropology of education investigates a number of problems such as the socialization function of schooling, the transmission of culture from older to younger generation within the educational process, the role of ethnocentrism in the reproduction of inequalities and the possibilities of cultural relativism in schools. At the end of this presentation we review the emerging field of educational anthropology in Greece.