You will prepare and submit a term paper on 3.Meads Coming of Age in Samoa is often read as an attempt to popularize anthropology, but to what extent did it also extend and develop it. Your paper should be a minimum of 2250 words in length. It is evident that Mead’s success in anthropology research depended on a firm foundation laid by Boaz on the discipline. She managed to extend Boaz’s ambition of making anthropology universal by sharing information she gained through books and doing extensive research on Boas pioneered disciplines such as cultural anthropology, nature versus nurture issues, emotional turbulence and biological development and adolescent issues.

Boas maintained a viewpoint that human nature and the actions people portray emanate from civilization constraints. To ascertain his theory, Boas instructed Mead to establish if the poignant stress and turmoil that American adolescents in Samoa undergo had cultural or biological influence. Mead researched on Boas hypothesis by working as an ethnographer in American Samoa (Margaret, n.d., p. 54). In response, Mead launched an investigation in the Island of Samoa living among the society members and fulfilling all their cultural requirements as she compiled results on adolescents’ girls’ behaviors within Samoa. Mead recorded an analysis of her results in book “Coming of Age in Samoa”, published in 1928.

In her study results, Mead established that youth concerns were neither constraining nor stressful among Samoan teenagers and adults. She carried out the research to from twenty-five teenage women in three villages of Samoa. Her comments indicated that the perceived time and stress, which adolescents’ experience, are because of cultural restraints. Mead’s comments supported the view that young people from different social and cultural arrangements within Samoa were free from caused stress characters that are characteristic of adolescence stage of development. Stress-free adolescence was because of total casualness or lack of concern towards youth issues. Adolescence stress was limited to and experienced by royal families such as chief’s wives and daughters.