Student Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to examine the basic conceptual framework which structures the anthropological study of humanity, identifying the crucial distinctions between ethnocentrism and the practice of cultural relativism.
• Students will be able to assess the historical development of anthropology as a Western academic discipline, giving particular attention to the significant contributions and perspectives of women, minority and non-Western cultural anthropologists.
• Students will be able to recognize the immense scope of the multi-faceted discipline of anthropology and explain the relationships between its basic areas of inquiry: physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistics and archaeology.
• Students will be able to analyze how anthropological knowledge and insights can be applied to current societal issues, and then be extrapolated to an analytic evaluation of humanity's future.
• Students will be able to critically evaluate the dynamics of culture change (both voluntary and involuntary), and apply this knowledge to understanding the complexities of culturally heterogeneous societies.
• Students will be able to recognize the diversity of human cultures by contrasting comparative ethnographic information from a significant variety of world societies.
• Students will be able to relate how the processes in any cultural system operate by analyzing the integrated, synergistic nature of all such systems.
• Students will be able to analyze the key methodological practices of cultural anthropology, with its major focus on pursuing ethnographic research through fieldwork.