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Contribution short abstract:

Can a teenager be an ethnographer? In my classroom, the answer is yes! This paper explores the use of anthropological methods to increase student voice and student engagement based on my experience teaching humanities in an underfunded, diverse, and diasporic secondary school in Seattle, USA.

Contribution long abstract:

We don’t get to teach kids anthropology. Before university, most educators don’t get to expose students to anthropology in meaningful ways. This paper advocates for the use of anthropological methods within school environments due to their demonstrably positive impact on educational outcomes, particularly when delivered in line with a Freirean, critical pedagogy approach.

Centring student voice and experience is proven to increase student engagement, academic success, and critical thinking skills, especially for historically underserved and underfunded schools like those in ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse diasporic communities.

Based on a career teaching secondary school in a Title 1, majority minority school in south Seattle, USA, having undergone anthropological training either side of this role, and observing the clear dialogue between the two, this paper explores the use of anthropological methods such as life-story-interviewing, auto-ethnography, and ethnocartography within secondary school humanities classrooms. Drawing on two of my students’ favourite activities - vernacular maps and snapshot migration stories - this paper demonstrates the ways in which anthropological methods make for strong teaching pedagogy and practice that elevates student voice and funds of knowledge which leads to increased student engagement and improved academic and social emotional outcomes.

This paper will explain, reflect on, and advocate for learning activities such as these that centre student experience.

This paper further argues for the use of methods, typically first encountered at the university level, as a way to create empathetic and experience-based learning communities and prepare students for the environment of higher education.