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  • © 2017

Anthropological Perspectives on Student Futures

Youth and the Politics of Possibility

Palgrave Macmillan
  • Provides ethnographic accounts from areas all over the world where mass schooling is nearly universal though not of equal quality
  • Contributes to an anthropology of youth and education which has been drawn largely to studies of popular culture, consumerism, and resistance
  • Contextualizes the work of educators and researchers within the larger discussion about youth and the politics of time within the Anthropology of Education and Cultural Studies

Part of the book series: Anthropological Studies of Education (ASE)

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About this book

This book examines diverse ways in which young people from around the world envision and prepare for their future education, careers, and families.  The book features cutting-edge anthropological essays including ethnographic accounts of schooling in India, South Africa, the US, Bhutan, Tanzania, and Nigeria. Each chapter focuses on today’s generation of students and on students' use of education to create new possibilities for themselves. This volume will be of particular interest to practicing teachers and anthropologists and to readers who seek an ethnographic understanding of the world as seen through the eyes of students.

Reviews

“This book is a remarkable and ethnographically very rich contribution to the field of youth studies. Bringing together anthropological debates on youth, education, and temporality in diverse regional settings, the book has much to add to our understanding of the complex routes and prospects that shape young people’s livelihoods in situations of uncertainty. An extremely timely book!” (Karen Valentin, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Anthropology, Aarhus University, Denmark)

“This rich volume argues for a shift away from policy studies of classrooms and schools to a broader perspective in which student horizons of aspiration, expectation, and hope are placed at the center of the analysis. Far from being simple paths to social mobility, schools are shown to primarily be sites where youth learn to engage, debate, contest, and evaluate the practices of aspiration through which education refracts larger social constraints on future-building. This book is indispensable for all scholars of youth, education, and globalization.” (Arjun Appadurai, Paulette Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University, USA)

Editors and Affiliations

  • UNIVERSITY OF WISCCONSIN MADISON , MADISON, USA

    Amy Stambach

  • University of Pennsylvania , Media, USA

    Kathleen D. Hall

About the editors

Amy Stambach is Vilas Distinguished Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA.  Her major publications include Faith in Schools: Religion, Education, and American Evangelicals in East Africa, Confucius and Crisis in American Universities, and Lessons from Mount Kilimanjaro: Schooling, Community, and Gender in East Africa. 


Kathleen D. Hall is Associate Professor of Education and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, where she has also served as Director of the Center for South Asia Studies and coordinator of the annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum. Author of Lives in Translation: Sikh Youth as British Citizens as well as numerous research articles, she has successfully served as a Spencer Fellow, a National Academy of Education Postdoctoral Fellow, and a Salzburg Seminar Fellow.


Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access