2017 CAE Presidential Address: Intergenerational Disruption or Ideological Incongruency?

I am very privileged to be here today at the conclusion of my three-year term as program chair, president, and immediate past-president to share with you my reflections about CAE and the field of anthropology of education. I am humbled by this honor and the unique opportunity to lead the organization along with my fellow colleagues at the executive committee during these crucial times. In reviewing some of the lectures of those that preceded me, I learned that this speech is intended to be a very brief presidential address that “both reflects on the field and prognosticates on the future of the field” (Gonzalez, 2010). Today, I would like to follow that tradition. However, I would also like to address some of the concerns from last year’s conference. These concerns relate to both our organization and the field of anthropology of education.

I reviewed historical documents ranging from the report of the famous Northern California (Carmel) meeting in 1955 to the creation of CAE and its affiliation to AAA in the mid-1980s. I reviewed the transition of the CAE’s newsletter to the AEQ journal, and I examined some of the major themes present within both the Council and the field of anthropology of education. I needed to understand the past in order to make sense of the present.

In this lecture, I will first address the issue of scholarly identity and the field’s historical search for the sociocultural context of the educative process; second, I will address the issue of transdisciplinarity in anthropology of education; and third, I will conclude this speech by reflecting on both the ways CAE continues advancing our mission but also on the challenges that CAE faces ahead.