WOMEN IN ANTHROPOLOGY
By: Gale Goodwin Gomez, Ph.D.

STANDARD: All students will be able to identify women (or men if they are underrepresented) who are leaders and achievers in the particular core content curriculum area.

GRADE LEVEL: Grades 12-16. Suitable for introductory courses in cultural anthropology.

OBJECTIVE(S): All students will be able to identify women who have distinguished themselves and made significant contributions within the field of anthropology.

TIME: One or two class period(s).

MATERIALS: Two copies each of several different introductory texts in cultural anthropology.

PROCEDURES:

1. Divide students into groups and distribute copies of a particular text to each group.
2. Instruct each group to examine the text for references to women anthropologists and to describe their contributions.
3. Each group presents its findings and these will be combined to produce a list of women anthropologists and their contributions.
4. In addition, student groups may be sent to the library to investigate another area of specialization (such as linguistics, archaeology, physical (or biological) anthropology, or applied anthropology) for contributions by women not mentioned in the textbooks examined in class.
5. Students present their findings and expand the initial list of women anthropologists and their contributions.
6. Students are evaluated on the basis of class participation and group work.

HINTS:

Students should look at authors’ names in the suggested readings at the end of each chapter and in the general bibliography of the texts in their search for women who have made contributions in a given field.