The Fabric of a Student's Life and Thought: Practicing Cultural Anthropology in the Classroom

This article describes an approach to college teaching in which certain “uses” of cultural anthropology contribute to constructing what Paulo Freire calls a problem‐posing pedagogy. The process of prolonged formal schooling in American culture influences the formation of consciousness so profoundly that teachers concerned with social change and political awareness must attend to their classrooms, as well as to their students' experiences in the world. The article explores four distinctive aspects of teaching anthropology. For students to be able to think well about difference, for example, is an important step toward understanding complex social issues and being sensitive to injustice of all kinds.