Anthropology

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Program Director:

Erica Tucker
Office: Martin Institute 202
Phone: 508-565-1278
etucker@stonehill.edu
 

Housed in the Department of Sociology and Criminology Department , the Anthropology Program offers a major and minor.

Mission of the Program

The Anthropology Program at Stonehill College focuses on the holistic study of human cultural diversity over time and across space. Anthropologists seek to understand the cultures we study from an insider’s point of view, utilizing ethnographic research methods and theory regarding social behavior to do so. The Anthropology Program at Stonehill is focused primarily on cultural anthropology, which studies the ways that humans create meaning and order, assert differences, form alliances, and foment and cope with social, political, and economic change.

The mission of the program is to help students gain the skills to understand and appreciate human culture, and to study how people understand, organize, preserve and transform their social worlds. Students will develop techniques of observation, writing fieldnotes, interviewing, and analyzing human behavior. At the most basic level we invite students to reconsider what they take to be normal or natural and to reflect on their position in the world. The program aims to enhance students’ ability to thrive in an increasingly interconnected and globalized world by offering them an important critical framework for assessing the needs and appreciating the values and interests of diverse communities.

The Anthropology Major and Minor are open to students of any major, preparing them for a range of careers including nonprofit work, careers in museums, healthcare, education, and business.

Student Learning Goals

Anthropology majors and minors will:

• Understand the types of questions asked by anthropologists and the research methods they employ to answer them.
• Be familiar with anthropological literature and data sources, and demonstrate the ability to access such data.
• Develop knowledge of anthropological perspectives, concepts, and theories.
• Cultivate skills of critical reading, scholarly research, and composition.
• Develop their own research questions and proposals, and demonstrate the ability to collect and analyze data.
• Develop an understanding of the main issues and debates in at least one sub-discipline of anthropology
• Demonstrate the ability to critically evaluate ethnographic research and anthropological theory.

Programs

• Anthropology, B.A.

• Anthropology Minor

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