26. maj 2017

From rite of passage to a mentored educational activity: Fieldwork for master's students of anthopology

Associate Professor Helle Samuelsen and Associate Professor Cecilie Robow have published the article 'From rite of passage to a mentored educational activity: Fieldwork for master's students of anthopology' as a contribution to the journal 'Learning and Teaching - The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences'.

The article discusses the teaching of anthropological fieldwork during a period of comprehensive educational reforms in Danish universities. They have traced widely held conceptions of fiedwork among master's students of anthropology and the efforts they make to live up to what they assume to be classic fieldwork. Helle Samuelsen and Cecilie Rubow argue that the ideals of classic fieldwork too often fail to support the learning process when fieldwork is squeezed into the timeframe of the curriculum and show how fieldwork as part of an educational programme can be mentored by online feedback. Their suggestion is that cooperative reflection during fieldwork can improve the quality of the empirical material and the analytical process significantly.

Helle Samuelsen, Cecilie Rubow, From rite of passage to a mentored educational activity: Fieldwork for master's students of anthopology in Learning and Teaching - The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences, vol. 10, 2017.