Margaret Mead

Coming of Age in Samoa

,,Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with

which one must look and listen, record in
astonishment and wonder that which one would not
have been able to guess.
Margaret Mead

Who is
Margaret Mead?
She was born on December 16th, 1901 in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Margaret Mead was a well-known American
cultural anthropologist, scientist/environmentalist,
womens rights advocate and speaker in the mass
media during the 1960s and 1970s.

Early life and education

She was the first of five children
Her dad was a professor of finance
and her mom was a sociologist who
studied Italian immigrants
Born into a family of various religious
outlooks, she searched for a form of
religion that gave an expression of
the faith that she had been formally
acquainted with,Christianity.
In doing so, she found the rituals of
theEpiscopal Churchto fit the
expression of religion she was
seeking

 Mead attended Barnard College in New York and received

her Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology
She went on to get her Masters and Ph.D. at Columbia
University
She then continued to teach at Columbia University, New
York University, Emory University and Yale University
She founded the urban anthropology department at NYU
in 1965 and in 1968 she founded the same department
at Fordham University

Coming of Age
in Samoa
Margaret Mead got the opportunity
to do some fieldwork in Samoa
where she studied the Samoan
adolescent girls in comparison to
the American adolescents
She lived in a Samoan household
as one of the girls (participant
observation)
She realized that Samoan girls
indulged in casual intercourse
before they settled down without
any consequences - unlike the
American girls

 Culture influences personality

more than genetics
She came back to America and in
1928 published a book called
,,Coming of Age in Samoa
Mead's findings suggested that
the community ignores both boys
and girls until they are about 15
or 16. Before then, children have
no social standing within the
community.
Mead also found that marriage is
regarded as a social and
economic arrangement where
wealth, rank, and job skills of the
husband and wife are taken into
consideration.

Girls
4-5 years old

Boys

-in charge of babies

and toddlers

in charge of work and

planning for the village

Puberty
-perform more physical

tasks like

learn diverse skills like

fishing,building,orating
child-rearing

harvesting crops
-no longer in charge of

American and Samoan contrasts

Mead concluded that the passage from
childhood to adolescence in Samoa was a
smooth transition and not marked by the
emotional or psychological distress,
anxiety, or confusion as seen in the
United States.
Mead concluded that this was due to the
Samoan girl's belonging to a stable,
monocultural society, surrounded by role
models, and where nothing concerning
the basic human facts of copulation, birth,
bodily functions, or death, was hidden.
The Samoan girl was not pressured to
choose from among a variety of
conflicting values, as was the American
girl.

Reception
On publication, the book generated a great deal of
coverage both in the academic world and in the popular
press - Mead became an instant celebrity
Her conclusions and theories greatly influenced the course
of sociological research and thought
Mead is considered one of the founders of the school of
Culture and Personality among anthropologists

Three Samoan women preparing to make

Interesting Facts
Mead was a feminist but
didnt like being defined
as one because of the
way it was portrayed in
society
Mead went through 3
marriages, and had a
daughter with her 3rd
husband in 1939
In 1969 Time
Magazine named her
Mother of the Year
Mead died on November
15th, 1978 of pancreatic

Impact on society
She popularized the insights of
anthropology in modern
American andWestern culture
Her reports detailing the
attitudes towards sex in South
Pacific and Southeast Asian
traditional cultures influenced
the 1960ssexual revolution
She was a proponent of
broadening sexual mores within
a context of traditional Western
religious life.
Popularized the participant
observation method in America

Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_of_Age_in_
Samoa

Arianna Hubak