A Study Of Spindler's Ideology In Educational Anthropology

Dr. George D. Spindler (1920-) is a famous anthropologist in contemporary American education. As early as before World Warâ…¡, Spindler had used the concepts and methods of anthropology to analyze the process of education. He continued his research work in Wisconsin after the war. Spindler went to the United States, Canada and Germany in the field of anthropology in 1948, which formed a study of American culture style of educational anthropology. He gained the John Gay Folks Awards between 1947 and 1948. Working at Stanford University in 1950, he served as Head of the Department of Anthropology. He got anthropology, sociology and psychology doctorate in the University of California in Los Angeles. Spindler organized the famous American Anthropology and Education Conference at Stanford in 1954, which marked the formation of anthropology of education.1962-1966 years, Spindler and his wife did work together as editors of "American Anthropologist" magazine.Spindler's researches involve the dissemination of American culture, interdisciplinary evaluation of the relationship between personality and culture, urbanization and rural German identity, cultural change and modernization, the exploration of educational anthropology, ethnographic study of school education and so on. Spindler has an industrious life himself, and make great contributions for education construction and development of anthropology.In this study, I summarize Spindler's ideological and theoretical perspectives of educational anthropology and research methods systematically combing by the literature method to provide information for the educational anthropology in China. Spindler work mainly in the use of educational field trips, ethnographic research methods, Menominee people in Wisconsin, Canada's bloody Indians, Quebec Cree Mistassini German villagers and their school, California teachers and schools, rural teachers and rural Wisconsin school field visits, the use of the Rorschach Test, Thematic Apperception Technique, and the Cross-Cultural Sensitization Technique, the Instrumental Activities Inventory, the Cross-Cultural Comparative Reflective Interview Technique, writing ethnography, and providing reference for other researchers. Spindler created "cultural therapy" theory, the subconscious teachers may have to correct the cultural preference for exclusion of the possible ethnocentrism damage caused to the students.Spindler has his unique charm in education aims,educational theory and educational methods all, our educational anthropology is in its infancy, when needs to build support for its theory for the localization of educational anthropology in China. We can apply the theory of cultural therapy to train teachers in Han, continuing education, the use of ethnography, from the cross-cultural perspectives and vision to provide insight into the problems of education.