A new study reports that pre-kindergarten programs in Tennessee fail to achieve any long-term gains. Republican lawmakers are already seizing on the news as evidence that pre-K programs don’t work in general, and should no longer be funded. By contrast, the same study reports that pre-kindergarten programs in Boston are
A new study by economist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz tells us that Internet searches for “God” are way down. He notes that this is true even in cases of catastrophe: Stephens-Davidowitz “looked at the war in Ukraine, the civil war in Syria, the tsunami in Japan, and the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. In
Donald Trump has revived old stereotypes in claiming that Fox News commentator/Republican debate moderator Megyn Kelly was ruled by her hormones (“bleeding from her wherever”) when she critiqued his multiple sexist statements and stances. Explaining away women’s anger by reference to the menstrual cycle is an old habit of those
Cleaning up beach waste in the form of abandoned rubber flip-flops . . . recycling landfill-able castoffs . . . training low-income men and women in job skills and providing them with living wages in Nairobi . . . creating beautiful art . . . saving fish, dolphins and baby turtles from
Cell phones . . . couches . . . gyms and community centers . . . archaeologists of the future will unearth countless artifacts and buildings that will testify to the nature of our lives as social creatures. Recently, anthropologists have argued for evidence of a different sort that tells a
As a high school student, I remember the excitement of going door-to-door to solicit signatures on petitions of various sorts. Adding one’s name to a list of other names on a single piece of paper may not seem consequential. But when that sheet joins hundreds or thousands of others, suddenly
As an anthropologist, the first thought that comes to mind as we approach an upcoming holiday is typically, How do they celebrate this holiday in X?—X being a faraway land where the celebration is likely to look quite different from how it looks in my hometown. The next thought that
New research claims that saying “Ow” really can ease the pain. Why am I skeptical? Or, rather, why am I skeptical that this works globally? For one thing, in Côte d’Ivoire, when Beng folks I’ve known slash a finger while chopping wood, or feel the effects of parasites churning in
Much of the Western world has expressed solidarity with the right to publish offensive cartoons by identifying with the cartoonists at the iconoclastic weekly, Charlie Hebdo, who were killed by Islamicist fundamentalists. To date, the Je Suis Charlie Facebook page has garnered some 315,000 “Likes.” Multilingual “I am Charlie” mottos
Racist claims to the contrary (as in the Urban Dictionary’s definition of Ebonics as “A poor excuse for a failure to grasp the basics of English”), it’s good to remember that language is ALWAYS changing . . . and it’s so easy to forget–or claim shock on discovering–earlier meanings. The