In talking about food, Claude Lévi-Strauss claimed that some foods are not necessarily delicious, good to eat, but rather provide food for thought; they are, in his famous phrase, good to think. Similarly, I am claiming here that some... more
In talking about food, Claude Lévi-Strauss claimed that some foods are not necessarily delicious, good to eat, but rather provide food for thought; they are, in his famous phrase, good to think. Similarly, I am claiming here that some language in China is good to hear, or ...
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Research Interests: East Asia and Linguistics
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One especially illuminating aspect of a sign, according to contemporary linguistic anthropologists, is its indexical nature: signs gain meaning through logical or proximate association. And indexicality itself is multiple. In any given... more
One especially illuminating aspect of a sign, according to contemporary linguistic anthropologists, is its indexical nature: signs gain meaning through logical or proximate association. And indexicality itself is multiple. In any given instance the potential associations are infinite but the actual associations are limited by a variety of perhaps contingent factors, discoverable not in advance but only through investigation. In demonstrating the multiple aspects (orders [Silverstein 2003], types [Ochs 1992], levels [Hanks 1992]) of indexicality of local food, I show that it indexes all at once location, contact, proximity, and multiple qualities (Chumley and Harkness 2013). As advertisers and others know (Luntz 2007, Puntoni, Schroeder, and Ritson 2010), the more positive associations that can be bundled into a single term, the more effective it can be. While only some advocates of local food would regard themselves as advertisers, virtually all see their task as promotion or educat...
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In this article, we discuss research from the science of teaching and learning and from progressive pedagogy, with the aim of discussing how these fields can help us all become better teachers.
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Most of us use language without giving much thought to the way it works or how it functions differently across cultures; however, the ability to use language is perhaps the most uniquely human of all our characteristics. Each of the... more
Most of us use language without giving much thought to the way it works or how it functions differently across cultures; however, the ability to use language is perhaps the most uniquely human of all our characteristics. Each of the forty-five readings in Making Sense of Language: Readings in Culture and Communication acts as a window--a particular perspective--on language. Chosen for their accessibility, these classic and contemporary selections engage students in thinking about language and how it relates to many aspects of being human. *A broad range of topics and viewpoints provides the ideal introduction to the study of language and presents instructors with a variety of options for teaching from the text. *Introductions to each part, thematic unit, and reading offer succinct historical and intellectual context to guide students and help them make connections among the topics and articles. *Pre- and post-reading questions, suggested activities, lists of key terms, suggested fur...
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In this article, we discuss research from the science of teaching and learning and from progressive pedagogy, with the aim of discussing how these fields can help us all become better teachers. Our methods were based on assessment of the... more
In this article, we discuss research from the science of teaching and learning and from progressive pedagogy, with the aim of discussing how these fields can help us all become better teachers. Our methods were based on assessment of the literature and our in-class practices. We find that the practices of critical progressive pedagogy are rooted in good research practices and are based both on new research and on fundamental aspects of teaching and learning. While some of the ideas mentioned in this piece might be seen as radical, we argue that everyone can benefit from a discussion of these concepts and ideas. Teaching is something that we all do in various ways. Progressive pedagogy allows us to create classrooms as a space to welcome all learners and also pushes educators toward creating a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable classroom.
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for Asian Studies, Blum has written extensively on language, identity, and nationalism in
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Book detailsBlum, S. (2020). Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). West Virginia University Press.
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The Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem (BCe2) is a collaborative community project designed to restore and enhance a vital but polluted river tributary by linking the efforts of local community groups, schools, and universities in the... more
The Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem (BCe2) is a collaborative community project designed to restore and enhance a vital but polluted river tributary by linking the efforts of local community groups, schools, and universities in the revitalizing city of South Bend, Indiana. As a community-based engineering project continues, two faculty advisors and two anthropology students reflect on the program's inaugural summer as practicing ethnographers. Practice, as an anthropological concept, not only has continual relevance for this ethnographic team; its confluence flows directly from the merger of collaborative engineering with practicing anthropology. The team explored “ethnographic engineering” as an emergent collaborative form of practicing anthropology.
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This chapter will provide an overview of the intersections between language and social justice in greater China. Like many nation-states that were either created or reshaped in the twentieth century, the People’s Republic of China, the... more
This chapter will provide an overview of the intersections between language and social justice in greater China. Like many nation-states that were either created or reshaped in the twentieth century, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Singapore and Hong Kong have all established language policies. In practice, the actual use of language does not always match that of the language policy, as law, policy, attitudes and practice intertwine. In response to these language policies, the twenty-first century has witnessed significant social movements involving resistance to the standardization and domination of languages.
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What would American public higher education look like if it was unencumbered by its own history? What if it were designed from scratch today, in full view of everything we have come to know about student learning, schooling, and our... more
What would American public higher education look like if it was unencumbered by its own history? What if it were designed from scratch today, in full view of everything we have come to know about student learning, schooling, and our projections about the future of knowledge and work? This thought experiment project does just that. After justifying the need for a thoroughgoing redesign now, the backward-designed axiomatic approach is used to determine the essential features of public education, which are assembled into a model that centers teamed learning and is organized around authentic questions from learners or their community.
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An Anthropolitical Critique of the " Language Gap " Is language responsible for poverty? If poor and minority parents spoke like rich white parents, would they too become rich and successful? That's the impression one gets... more
An Anthropolitical Critique of the " Language Gap " Is language responsible for poverty? If poor and minority parents spoke like rich white parents, would they too become rich and successful? That's the impression one gets from the nowfamiliar discourse about the language gap (or word gap, or 30 millionword gap) between children (of color) on welfare and children of professional (white) parents. This notion of a language gap is based on flawed and limited research yet has taken on a life of its own, circulating like those 200 Eskimo words for snow. Here's the background: In the 1980s, two psychologists, Hart and Risley, counted the words and utterances addressed to 42 infants and toddlers in families they classified as ranging from upper to lower socioeconomic status. They claimed to calculate the number and quality of utterances addressed directly to the children and to discern a correlation: the wealthiest children were hearing the greatest number of words (pri...
An Anthropolitical Critique of the " Language Gap " Is language responsible for poverty? If poor and minority parents spoke like rich white parents, would they too become rich and successful? That's the impression one gets... more
An Anthropolitical Critique of the " Language Gap " Is language responsible for poverty? If poor and minority parents spoke like rich white parents, would they too become rich and successful? That's the impression one gets from the nowfamiliar discourse about the language gap (or word gap, or 30 millionword gap) between children (of color) on welfare and children of professional (white) parents. This notion of a language gap is based on flawed and limited research yet has taken on a life of its own, circulating like those 200 Eskimo words for snow. Here's the background: In the 1980s, two psychologists, Hart and Risley, counted the words and utterances addressed to 42 infants and toddlers in families they classified as ranging from upper to lower socioeconomic status. They claimed to calculate the number and quality of utterances addressed directly to the children and to discern a correlation: the wealthiest children were hearing the greatest number of words (pri...
Page 1. SUSAN D. BLUM than much conversation-analytic work; and while overtly ethnographic in its sub-stance, it presupposes less collateral disciplinary knowledge than Moerman's essay (1988) in this difficult, important... more
Page 1. SUSAN D. BLUM than much conversation-analytic work; and while overtly ethnographic in its sub-stance, it presupposes less collateral disciplinary knowledge than Moerman's essay (1988) in this difficult, important area. ...
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This article proposes a twenty-first-century anthropology of learning: comparative, integrating, powerful , speaking truth to power, and engaging in ethnographic, humanistic, and scientific investigation. Such an enterprise welcomes a... more
This article proposes a twenty-first-century anthropology of learning: comparative, integrating, powerful , speaking truth to power, and engaging in ethnographic, humanistic, and scientific investigation. Such an enterprise welcomes a wide variety of methods. An anthropology of learning includes-but distinguishes-education, socialization, enculturation, and schooling. It encompasses formal, informal, and nonformal learning. It grapples with definitions of learning and emphasizes that these are part of every human experience. Some learning happens in schools; only some of the learning matches what is explicitly intended. Sometimes learning is fostered by teaching, but pedagogy is not always required. Anthropology is an ideal discipline for investigating learning, education, and schooling-but these topics are not widely known in the field in general. The article proposes three centers of attention and provides an extended example, the "thirty-million-word gap." [learning, schooling, education, word gap] RESUMEN Este artículo propone una antropología del aprendizaje del siglo XXI: comparativa, integradora, y poderosa, que le habla la verdad al poder y comprometida con investigací on etnográficaetnogr´etnográfica, humanística y científica. Tal iniciativa acoge una amplia variedad de m ´ etodos. Una antropología del aprendizaje incluye-pero distingue-educací on, socializací on, enculturací on e instruccí on. Abarca aprendizaje formal, informal y no formal. Confronta definiciones de aprendizaje y enfatiza qué estas son parte de cada experiencia humana. AlgúnAlg´Algún aprendizaje ocurre en escuelas; s ´ olo algúnalg´algún aprendizaje coincide con lo que estáest´está explícitamente diseñadodise˜diseñado. Algunas veces el aprendizaje se estimula con la enseñanzaense˜enseñanza, pero la pedagogía no es siempre requerida. La antropología es una disciplina ideal para investigar sobre aprendizaje, educací on e instruccí on-pero estos t ´ opicos no son ampliamente conocidos en el campo en general. Este artículo propone tres centros de atencí on y provee un ejemplo extendido, el "vacío de treinta millones de palabras." [aprendizaje, instruccí on, educací on, vacío de palabras] , , , , , , , , , , , ""[: ]
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An Anthropolitical Critique of the " Language Gap " Is language responsible for poverty? If poor and minority parents spoke like rich white parents, would they too become rich and successful? That's the... more
An Anthropolitical Critique of the " Language Gap " Is language responsible for poverty? If poor and minority parents spoke like rich white parents, would they too become rich and successful? That's the impression one gets from the nowfamiliar discourse about the language gap (or word gap, or 30 millionword gap) between children (of color) on welfare and children of professional (white) parents. This notion of a language gap is based on flawed and limited research yet has taken on a life of its own, circulating like those 200 Eskimo words for snow. Here's the background: In the 1980s, two psychologists, Hart and Risley, counted the words and utterances addressed to 42 infants and toddlers in families they classified as ranging from upper to lower socioeconomic status. They claimed to calculate the number and quality of utterances addressed directly to the children and to discern a correlation: the wealthiest children were hearing the greatest number of words (primarily in the form of " encouragement, " according to Hart and Risley) while the poorest children were hearing the fewest words (many " discouraging, " according to Hart and Risley). Extrapolating, they estimated that by the age of 3, the gap between children at the economic top and bottom amounted to a staggering 30 million words. Without investigating whether this pattern exists across contexts and country, they concluded that the language gap could explain the correlation between poverty and school failure (see the original study here and an early critique here).
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Claiming to rely on “science,” many well-intentioned “experts” offer advice on how to “close the gap”—word gap, language gap, achievement gap—between disadvantaged and advantaged children. Based on both research and personal experience,... more
Claiming to rely on “science,” many well-intentioned “experts” offer advice on how to “close the gap”—word gap, language gap, achievement gap—between disadvantaged and advantaged children. Based on both research and personal experience, this advice promises magic solutions to apparently complex and intractable problems by coaching disadvantaged parents in how best to speak to their young children. One significant shortcoming, however, is that the research is often circular, mistaking correlation and causation, and it is based on limited populations—what Henrich et al. 2010 termed WEIRD populations of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic people, often majority undergraduate college students in North America. The unseen assumptions about what is “natural” or “optimal” may be evident when cross-cultural evidence is brought to contrast with the assumed proper way to socialize children into language—ways familiar to white, middle-class, professional North American practitioners. This article reveals three of the dominant ideologies governing the “gaps” discourse: parochial understandings of language, childhood, and learning. Ultimately, I argue that accepting diverse aspects of all these concepts can give rise to flourishing human beings.
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Page 1. Tales from the Fields of Yunnan Listening to Han Stories SUSAN D. BLUM University of Colorado at Denver Ethnicity as a field of study has burgeoned in the social sciences during the past two decades, resulting in ...
Research Interests: Anthropology, Psychological Anthropology, Ethnography, Chinese Studies, Linguistic Anthropology, and 15 moreConversation Analysis, Narrative, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Islam in China, Xinjiang, China, Multidisciplinary, Yunnan, Nationalism & Conflict, Uyghurs, Chinese minorities, Identity and Alterity, Modern China, Chinese Minority Education, and Central Asian Societies
Page 1. RR OF PRIMITIVES ORDERING HUMAN KINDS IN THE CHINESE NATION Susan D. Blum Page 2. Page 3. Portraits of "Primitives" This One DBUZ-FR7-HY5R Page 4. Page 5. Portraits of... more
Page 1. RR OF PRIMITIVES ORDERING HUMAN KINDS IN THE CHINESE NATION Susan D. Blum Page 2. Page 3. Portraits of "Primitives" This One DBUZ-FR7-HY5R Page 4. Page 5. Portraits of "Primitives" Ordering Human ...
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It is ineffective to address the topic of teaching and enforcing academic integrity without understanding the lives, hopes, values, and challenges of those who are expected to enact it: college students. This chapter argues that students... more
It is ineffective to address the topic of teaching and enforcing academic integrity without understanding the lives, hopes, values, and challenges of those who are expected to enact it: college students. This chapter argues that students and faculty are unlikely to share views of the meaning and especially the importance of academic integrity, which is, after all, a set of notions peculiar to the professional ethics of the contemporary world of letters; compliance may be demanded and obtained without genuine embrace of the concept. Many aspects of students' lives explain reasons for neglect and disregard of norms of academic integrity; only a few support those norms. Presentation of these contexts is not intended to excuse violations of academic integrity. It is to explain what students may think -- or fail to think -- about the topic and to show why it is so difficult to get students' attention on this subject, no matter how many times they may sign affirmations upholding institutional norms of academic integrity. This chapter shows that many, or most, students are distracted, busy, and stressed and live with attention directed everywhere but at upholding norms of academic integrity.