StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture by Clifford Geertz - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The author of the paper "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture by Clifford Geertz" argues in a well-organized manner that the main theme of Geertz is to create an understanding of what culture really means and how it affects those who are in education. …
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER97.7% of users find it useful
Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture by Clifford Geertz
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture by Clifford Geertz"

?The question of culture is one which is often regarded with specific definitions but isn’t analyzed in terms of how it affects individuals in an educational setting. In Clifford Geertz’s article, “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture,” there is a question of what culture means and how it can be regarded in terms of education. The main theme of Geertz is to create an understanding of what culture really means and how it affects those who are in education. By building a question of the meaning and definitions, there is the ability to create a different understanding and interpretation of how to relate to cultural ideas. The strength of Geertz’s article comes from the ability to create a question of what culture should mean in a specific environment. Geertz is able to look at and analyze the interpretations of culture. This comes from the ideas of behavior and actions, intellectual relationships and interactions within the classroom. Geertz shows that individuals have created and embraced that culture must mean something that relates to identifying an individual and placing them with a specific identity and description. However, Geertz creates a challenge by stating that culture is the expression of the individual and the lifestyle they live. By building an intellectual response around this, there is the inability to understand the true identity and character of those who are relating to the understanding of culture. This leads to a common law of what culture should mean, despite the true reality of what exists within culture. The concepts that Geertz relates to and challenges readers with don’t only carry strength because of the main question in terms of culture. He furthers his alternatives with the ethnographic and anthropological discussions that are a part of culture. There is a large amount of evidence and definitions that have shown how these have created a specific intellectual viewpoint toward culture. Geertz doesn’t disregard the philosophies and definitions that are associated with these main viewpoints on culture and how this creates specific relationships to individuals in society. Instead, this is embraced with observing the strengths of these philosophies. However, there is also an understanding that this doesn’t equate to the experiences that individuals in society have and the beliefs in existence that one may have. While one may write about cultural affiliations and ways of existence, it can’t substitute for being in the experience and living within the culture as a belief and experience. The interpretations that are created then become self – limiting by the definitions and concepts that are related to this. The evidence that Geertz uses, associations to intellectual thought and the ability to show the ideologies of culture all help Geertz in creating a specific level of communication that divides the idea of culture from the experience of living in a culture. The one weakness that is in the article comes from the inability to truly analyze and understand what culture should mean if it goes outside of the parameters from those who have built observations and studies that relate to culture. Without this context, there is the inability to have a connection to culture and one remains detached from understanding other lifestyles. While there is the ability to understand that theories toward culture are intellectual interpretations, there is also the inability to create a substitute of what should exist in terms of building a deeper understanding of what culture should mean in terms of experience. The challenge then becomes based on creating a way to experience culture while bridging the gaps with intellectual viewpoints that are commonly used in terms of education. Questions of the curriculum within schools are often based on what students should be learning and what the expectations should be within the classroom. However, there is often not a consideration toward the difficulties with the expectations and the relationship that this creates with students. In the article “The Daily Grind” by PW Jackson, there is an understanding that the curriculum continues to overlook the true needs of students. There is the inability to build and connect true learning that is within the classroom while creating gaps with the specific needs which students have. This gap is one which is continuing to be followed, specifically with the beliefs that have been created surrounding education. The points that Jackson makes with his specific ideologies show that the gap in education is one which needs to alter to reach students at a different level. The main theme that Jackson points out is based on the understanding that students are expected to learn a specific amount of information in a short period of time. This learning is one that is conducted through teachers, administrators and institutions that expect outcomes for children. According to Jackson, these expectations are creating a rat race for students that don’t allow them to truly enjoy learning. Instead, the curriculum has focused on grinding in the information that students need to pass them through tests and expectations. This is creating a race to find what scores can have the best while causing schools to perform at a level that is not conducive to the learning of children, but instead to reaching specific goals for the school. According to Jackson, this is taking away from the learning capabilities of students and causing an established system to take over the true potential of students. The strength of Jackson’s argument comes from the observations of the classroom and the evidence which is based on the idea of the rat race and daily grind that he shows through policies and expectations of schools. Combining these two elements is able to show and prove that his theme of the daily grind is happening in schools. The curriculum that many are establishing then builds a specific understanding that there needs to be a sense of change within society and an alteration into changing the existence of schools and learning. This is not only strength of the argument because of the observations and evidence of Jackson. Most which are in school systems and which are currently experiencing the demands of the curriculum are finding the same difficulties and problems. One is able to relate to the argument and see the main points of Jackson through personal experience and the relationships which he creates to those involved in education. While Jackson is able to present a main problem with the curriculum, there is also a weakness in the approach he creates to those working in schools. The challenge is one which doesn’t have a constructive solution to help those in education. More important, Jackson limits the evidence to the main public school system. There are other alternatives that are moving outside of the main education system and which are finding new solutions to help with better learning for students. Tapping into these alternatives more and focusing on solutions that have developed outside of the daily grind would help educators to look at solutions and new alternatives that would help them to build a better alternative within the current school system.   References Geertz,C. (1973). Thick description:Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In C. Geertz, The interpretation of cultures (pp.3-30). New York, NY Basic Books.  Jackson, PW (2009). The daily grind. IN D J Finders & S. J Thornton (Eds.), The Curriculum studies reader (pp. 114-122). New York, NY Routledge. Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Life in Schools Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words”, n.d.)
Life in Schools Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/education/1434957-life-in-schools
(Life in Schools Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 Words)
Life in Schools Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 Words. https://studentshare.org/education/1434957-life-in-schools.
“Life in Schools Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/education/1434957-life-in-schools.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture by Clifford Geertz

Ethnography as Thick Description: Insights on the Study of Cultures from Geertz, Winch and Taylor

Ethnography as 'Thick Insights on the Study of Cultures from clifford geertz, Peter Winch and Charles Taylor I.... s ethnography became the predominant form of data collection in this period, one of its proponents, clifford geertz, considered this new, emerging form of social science as a "thick description.... Discussing and analyzing the works of clifford geertz, Peter Winch, and Charles Taylor concerning the issue of ethnography as an alternative form of knowledge and perspective in the field of social science, the concept of "thick description" is best illustrated....
8 Pages (2000 words) Literature review

Anthropological Interpretations of Culture by Kuper and Geertz

The paper "Anthropological Interpretations of culture by Kuper and Geertz" observes for Geertz, culture is ideas, while for Kuper it's a combination of social factors which influence a person.... clifford geertz (an American anthropologist) and Adam Kuper (a British anthropologist) propose unique interpretations of culture, its structure and impact on society and communication.... Under the leadership of clifford geertz, culture generates considerable excitement as a semiotic concept....
13 Pages (3250 words) Essay

The Positivist and Interpositivist Approaches To Sociology

This is clearly indicated in the work of clifford geertz.... He defined culture as the "webs of signicance" that man himself has spun, and argued that "the analysis of culture is therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning".... Therefore, such behaviour can be objectively observed and measured in the same way that natural science involves the construction of theory and the measuring of findings....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Analysis of William Labov and Penelope Eckert

In promoting progressive interpretations of culture, noted theorist clifford geertz (1993) supports such a sociological view that seeks to find the deeper interpretive meaning of the cultural utterance.... Labov is referencing the Structural Linguistic theory of Saussure who states in his General Course on Linguistics, "A linguistic system is a series of differences of sounds combined with a series of differences of ideas (Saussure 10).... Social network and social class: toward an integrated sociolinguistic model....
9 Pages (2250 words) Literature review

Must a Culture Be Experienced to be Truly Understood

While Geertz in Thick Description: toward an interpretive theory of culture points out that the social sciences differ on the extent to which the term can be objectively defined, it has been appropriated in a number of practical ways.... The positivist school of thought, which has been much maligned in recent years with the advent of post-structuralism, represents an approach a quantitative approach to ethnographic research and is founded on an understanding of culture as causal, whereas naturalism, “argues, we must adopt a system that respects the nature of the social world, which allows us to reveal its nature to us” (Hammersley, pg....
10 Pages (2500 words) Dissertation

Food Habits in Correlation With Social Status

In other words, it is can also be viewed as a thick description that can be related to Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist who wrote on the idea of an interpretative theory of culture in the early.... The ethnographer must be present in the research in order to acquire a firsthand type of information that is free from bias and manipulation (clifford geertz).... In every culture, they are different food habits depending on social behaviors, environment, and cultural practices that people identify themselves with in different seasons of the year....
7 Pages (1750 words) Research Paper

The History and Development of Socio-Cultural Anthropology in Britain

?? (Clifford Geertz, Description: Toward and interpretive theory of culture,” The Interpretation of Culture, [NY: Basic Books, 1973], Chapter 1) To analyse culture anthropologically Geertz prefers to set up parameters for people to observe and react to, either favourably or unfavourably. ... he books written by him include Argonauts of the Western Pacific, The Scientific theory of culture, The Trobriand Islands, The Dynamics of Culture Change and Magic Science and Religion....
9 Pages (2250 words) Essay

The Holistic Study of Humanity

hick description: Towards an interpretive theory of culture, is one of the most influential social sciences pieces of writing from three decades.... ) “thick description.... On the other hand geertz (1973, p.... ‘Cognition is dependent on existence of objective, external symbolic models of reality in way no ape's does: that is, it depends upon culture' (geertz, 1973, p.... Doing ethnography is an exercise in what philosopher Gillbert Ryle calls (cited in geertz p....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us