Chapter 1: Introduction
Summary
Mead begins by noting the disparity between what the current scientific knowledge of her time can justify and the observations that are made about troublesome adolescent children. Having experienced failure at the hands of psychology and philosophy, having been unable to attain the experimental rigor of biology, she turns to anthropology as the only possible untested venue of study of the adolescent child. She strips away as much extraneous cultural influence as possible by dedicated her study to none but the most primitive of societies, by choosing her subjects from the small island of Ta‘ū in American Samoa.
Discussion
From what little I have read thus far, I find Mead's solution to the problem of eliminating cultural influence to be nothing short of elegant. Indeed, I admire the path of any dedicated anthropologist, such as those who spend years among the people of a culture, learning the language as Mead did, sharing the customs as she did, for the sole purpose of fully knowing the culture by becoming a part of it. Also striking is the ascetic manner in which Mead seeks to study and portray simply "the Samoan girl in her social setting," absent of any political, mythological, or otherwise unnecessary influences. In short, I am fascinated by anthropology and thrilled to see what Mead will do in her new world.
Chapter 2: A Day in Samoa
Summary
In this chapter Mead describes a typical day in her small town in Samoa. She describes the activities of the town's different groups of people: the men go fishing or inland to find food; the women rotate out cooking duty; those pregnant and nursing tend to their children; the elders sit in huts lazily. Mead also categorizes the times of the day: pre-morning sees mild activity throughout the village; after the dull murmur of awakening, the village is silent during the hot day; as the sun goes down and people return from work, the village thrives; eating and partying continue into the night.
Discussion
A simple life such as this is very attractive to me at times. The activity in the village carries on as described because it has to: work must be done when there is light out, and everyone has something to do. It must be strange to think that a simple life such as this would be fulfilling to a person in this day and age of constant stimulation and instant gratification, but I would imagine that these people are fulfilled through their work more than any of us will ever be. Unfortunately I don't think that something like this will ever translate into our technology-laden world, at least not through technology itself and our interaction with it.
Appendix II: Methodology of this study
Summary
Mead goes over the methodology with which she carried out this study. She discusses some of the difficulty in obtaining a representative sample with a culture so small and the criteria she evaluated to compensate. She defended her choice of a cross-sectional study rather than a linear one for the sake of expediency and for the sake of what she wanted to capture with her research. Lastly she discussed her rationale for choosing how to obtain information and what information to present.
Discussion
One part of Mead's ethnographical methodology is especially applicable to today's study of technology and how users interact: her study was conducted in the language of the people she was studying, within the constructs of their culture, as we should know the "language" and "culture" of our users. People in the village came from very different backgrounds and yet the village was able to accommodate them in a way that was discretely identifiable by Mead. So should it be with technology, but I feel that even though you would discover the same relative differences in background if you performed a study in the manner of Mead's ethnography, you wouldn't find our culture to be nearly as accommodating. The cross-sectional study of technology users is much more applicable to application development and design today than it might have been to Mead, but the orthodoxy with which she conducted her study is admirable.
Appendix V: Materials on which the analysis is based
Summary
This section includes come of the materials which Mead collected on the girls she studied, including information on family life and structure, pubescent development, and intelligence tests.
Discussion
It is interesting to see the types of data the Mead collected and how well they served her purpose with respect to the ethnography. She kept talking about how little validity she was worried the study would have because of the inescapable restriction on group size, but I really feel like she captured the essence of what she was looking for, namely, the life of the adolescent Samoan girl. This is applicable today with respect to marketing towards and testing for a specific demographic as far as technology goes.
