Jules Henry, passionate ethnographer: An analysis of his work in anthropology and education

This study explores the contributions of anthropologist Jules Henry to the study of education. It shows how his perspective on education resulted from his early training in anthropology, the influence of his mentors, Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, and his particular life experiences. The first part of the dissertation traces the impact of his early years--as a graduate student at Columbia University, as an ethnographer in Brazil and Argentina, as a member of the culture and personality school--on the development of his world-view. A sketch of his life provides biographical context.;The second part of this study examines the years surrounding the Second World War, when his experiences as the director of research projects for the U.S. government redirected his early efforts in classical anthropology toward an interest in large-scale industrial societies. This redirection, combined with his interest in the study of national character, led him become an ethnographer of American culture and its institutions.;Henry was the first to do extensive ethnographic studies in American schools beginning in the late 1940s. That research produced a number of important essays on education in the 1950s and became the basis for his chapters on socialization and schooling in Culture Against Man his critical ethnography of America. The third part of this study examines those writings in detail with a particular focus on the impact of institutional structure on education and schooling.;This analysis of Henry's contributions to the anthropological study of education provides insights into the foundations of anthropology and education with implications for the current direction of the field. It makes clear the value of a broad anthropological approach to the study of schooling. It informs the current debates about qualitative research in education by assessing the way Henry, a pioneer in the field, developed his research techniques, particularly school ethnography. It demonstrates the value of placing studies of schooling in a cultural and cross-cultural context. It shows that an examination of Henry's work on the anthropological study of education still provides valuable insights into current issues and debates surrounding education and schooling in America.