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Social and Cultural Anthropology


milk

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sorry! it's just short for anthropology. the actual course is called 'ib social and cultural anthropology.' it's a newer class, i think! at my school everyone just called it 'ib anthro,' just how people say 'psych' for psychology.

never heard that before haha

Anyway, do you mind explaining what it involves in more detail?

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hi! i did social and cultural anthropology high level, and i just fell in love with it. Indeed, I want to be an anthropologist now! It consists in studying very different cultures to your own, in terms of some standard topics such as economics, politics, social stratification, art, religion.. it is very interesting because all of the other subjects show you a part of the world you already know or live in, but this subject mixes every subject as economics, history, art, even philosophy to show you in an holistic way how people of other parts of the planet live. i really encourage you to take it :) and dont worry about theory because SL do not have to learn it. good luck (:

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im having anthro sl paper 1 in like 2 hours. I always hated this subject the most. I was never able to absorb what i supposed to understand because i didnt even have any reason to take anthro in the first place. pathetic. though i like reading the ethnography, i hardly had enough time to study in my ib years, and just because, i never finished the book. Which made me hate it even more. Argh.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Anthro involves studying different cultures through ethnographies of different anthropologists, learning anthropology vocabulary and terms, and learning the basic concepts of anthropology. The test involves evaluating the author or anthropologist's biases, identifying vocabulary and concepts within papers, and writing, with vocabulary, about the societies and cultures that you have learned about.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 months later...

i am currently taking the class and its actually very interesting. My teacher is an anthropologist and it is fascinating to hear his experiences. At first I took the class because it sounded better than psychology, but I'm glad I did take it. Its a totally different experience. The only downfall is the ethnography reading. Im about to take IB anthro test in a couple of days so I hope this class pays off.

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  • 3 years later...

I wanted to take this subject, it's basically why I started the IB. But then, of course, 4 people chose the subject and since that was too few, a class was not started, and now I'm stuck with Psychology... It seemed really interesting, and from what I've read here, I'm missing out. Dammit...

that's weird, I'm the only person in my music class

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Social and cultural anthropology is amazing!! Ever since studying it I now want to go to uni and study it further with either politics or international development. I would say to google ethnographies, you need to be able to remember the date, the author/director and the title :) It can be anything like a documentary to a book, as long as it is factual and has studied a different culture/aspect of society. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do (I do HL) 

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  • 5 weeks later...

You are all making me really jealous of the schools that have it... if it was offered at my school, I'd take it in a heartbeat. I'm really interested in anthropology, and I'm disappointed my school doesn't offer it. It's not even an option at this point to my knowledge. Though, I am curious as to the great degree of variance in opinion in this subject. I've seen some say that it's an Easy-A, Easy-7 course, while others seem to absolutely adore it. What's the deal here? Is there a huge difference between HL and SL, or is it just the teacher?

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  • 5 months later...

You are all making me really jealous of the schools that have it... if it was offered at my school, I'd take it in a heartbeat. I'm really interested in anthropology, and I'm disappointed my school doesn't offer it. It's not even an option at this point to my knowledge. Though, I am curious as to the great degree of variance in opinion in this subject. I've seen some say that it's an Easy-A, Easy-7 course, while others seem to absolutely adore it. What's the deal here? Is there a huge difference between HL and SL, or is it just the teacher?

 

There's a huge difference between HL and SL in terms of the official work load and syllabus. But it does depends on the student, I mean there was a guy in my class who was doing SL but he had more contextual and theoretical knowledge than some HLs. 

 

Firstly, HL students have to learn theory (there is a paper 3 that is purely on theory that SLs do not do) while SLs only learn theoretical perspectives.

 

Secondly, for our IAs HL students are expected to do fieldwork and write an essay on their findings while SL students only need to critique their fieldwork or something? Not too familiar with exactly what the SLs did, so sorry. For my IA, I had to make multiple trips back to my field site, interview people, select theory to incorporate into my findings and write a small research essay in APA format as I am HL.

 

Thirdly, SL students will do 2 papers for the IB exams while HLs will do 3. Paper 1 contains an extra question just for HL students and Paper 2 is also approached differently if you're an HL. Basically there's a lot more focus on theory for HLs (Weber, Marx, Malinowski etc.)

That's all I can think of for now, but yeah i'm so disappointed that nobody on here seems to share my love for anthropology :( But I guess it's understandable, since there's honestly such a small number of schools that offer the subject. My school alone contributes about one-fourth of the total Anthro IB students worldwide so...

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You are all making me really jealous of the schools that have it... if it was offered at my school, I'd take it in a heartbeat. I'm really interested in anthropology, and I'm disappointed my school doesn't offer it. It's not even an option at this point to my knowledge. Though, I am curious as to the great degree of variance in opinion in this subject. I've seen some say that it's an Easy-A, Easy-7 course, while others seem to absolutely adore it. What's the deal here? Is there a huge difference between HL and SL, or is it just the teacher?

 

There's a huge difference between HL and SL in terms of the official work load and syllabus. But it does depends on the student, I mean there was a guy in my class who was doing SL but he had more contextual and theoretical knowledge than some HLs. 

 

Firstly, HL students have to learn theory (there is a paper 3 that is purely on theory that SLs do not do) while SLs only learn theoretical perspectives.

 

Secondly, for our IAs HL students are expected to do fieldwork and write an essay on their findings while SL students only need to critique their fieldwork or something? Not too familiar with exactly what the SLs did, so sorry. For my IA, I had to make multiple trips back to my field site, interview people, select theory to incorporate into my findings and write a small research essay in APA format as I am HL.

 

Thirdly, SL students will do 2 papers for the IB exams while HLs will do 3. Paper 1 contains an extra question just for HL students and Paper 2 is also approached differently if you're an HL. Basically there's a lot more focus on theory for HLs (Weber, Marx, Malinowski etc.)

That's all I can think of for now, but yeah i'm so disappointed that nobody on here seems to share my love for anthropology :( But I guess it's understandable, since there's honestly such a small number of schools that offer the subject. My school alone contributes about one-fourth of the total Anthro IB students worldwide so...

 

Thanks for all the info! It sounds like I'd really enjoy that, from what you're saying. The HL IA sounds like it could be really interesting. I typically love most humanities subjects, including anthro. Still wish I could take it.

My school is really small, and we probably wouldn't have enough participants to make it feasible anyway unfortunately. :( So it makes sense why they don't offer it, but still. I'm kind of disappointed. 

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  • 1 year later...

Yea IB Anthro is pretty fun no matter which class you're taking. Has a lot of reading, but the whole class is basically just discussion, reading quizzes, and in-class essays for me. A fun class overall though. Highly recommend taking it if you can. Have my Paper 1 tomorrow. Bouta ace it like nobody's business.

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