Brief Professional Biography

• Starts graduate work in anthropology at the University of Chicago (September 1968)
• Conducts fieldwork in Paw Paw, Michigan (September 1970 through August 1971)
• Receives his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago (June 1972)
• Is invited to join the faculty of the Department of Home and Family Life at Teachers College, Columbia University, as assistant professor (Fall 1972)
• Conducts fieldwork in a New Jersey High School (1972-73)
• Serves as acting chair of the Department of Home and Family Life (1974-1975)
• Is promoted to the rank of Associate Professor (Spring 1977)
  • Publishes Americans Together (1977)
• Is granted tenure in the renamed Department of Family and Community Education ( Fall 1978)
• Starts an ongoing collaboration with Professor Ray McDermott (on the faculty at Teachers College from 1979 to 1990).
• Is promoted to the rank of Professor (1983)
  • Publishes American School Language (1983)
  • Edits Symbolizing America (1986)
• Serves as chair of the Department of Family and Community Education (1984 to 1991)
• conducts fieldwork in Ballinteer, Ireland (September 1986 through June 1987)
• Joins the Department of Philosophy and the Social Sciences and the Programs in Anthropology at Teachers College after the closing of the Department of Family and Community Education (1991)
  • Publishes Ambiguous Harmony (1992)
  • Publishes, with Ray McDermott of the Stanford University School of Education, Successful Failure (1998)
• Joins the Department of Scientific Foundation (1997), then the Department of International and Transcultural Studies (2000) as Teachers College reorganizes.
• Serves as chair of the Department of International and Transcultural Studies (2001 to 2006)
  • participates with Jean Lave and Ray McDermott in a joint seminar at Berkeley and Stanford on "The Politics of Ignorance" (Spring 2004).
  • Guest edits a special issue of the Teachers College Record Explorations in the theory of education (2007) . This becomes Volume 1 of the Perspective on Comprehensive Education Series he and Edmund W. Gordon co-edit (2008)
• Co-directs (with Edmund W. Gordon) a project on comprehensive education and (with Dr. Linda Lin) an ethnographic investigation of educational settings in Harlem (2008-2010)
  • co-edit (with Edmund W. Gordon and Linda Lin) Theoretical Perspectives on Comprehensive Education: The Way Forward, Volume 2 of the series (2009)
  • co-edit ( with Linda Lin and Edmund W. Gordon) Educating Comprehensively: Varieties of Educational Experiences, Volume 3 of the series (2010).
• Receives the George and Louise Spindler Award for lifetime achievement from the Council on Anthropology and Education (2013)
• Serves again as chair of the Department of International and Transcultural Studies (2015 to 2024)
  • Publishes the collective book Education in life: Ethnographies of challenging new normals (2019)
  • Appointed Acting Director of the Center on Chinese Education (2024 to present)