Coming of Age in Samoa

A 1928 ethnography by Margaret Mead describing adolescence, sexuality, and socialization among girls in Samoa, and arguing that cultural conditions shape adolescent experience.

Margaret Mead: An American cultural anthropologist whose ethnographies helped popularize the study of culture and personality. Mead conducted the fieldwork and wrote the book.
Adolescence: The developmental period between childhood and adulthood, involving physical, cognitive, and social changes. Mead examined whether this life stage necessarily brings emotional turmoil.
Derek Freeman: A New Zealand anthropologist who disputed Mead’s account of Samoan adolescence. Freeman’s critique in 1983 reignited controversy over Mead’s evidence and conclusions.
Taʻu: An island in the Manuʻa group of American Samoa, where Mead conducted fieldwork. Mead’s observations of girls there supplied the ethnography’s principal evidence.
Ethnographic fieldwork: Research based on sustained observation and participation in the everyday life of a community. Questions about Mead’s access and methods remain central to evaluating the book.
American Samoa: A United States territory in the South Pacific, comprising the eastern Samoan islands. Mead carried out her research on Taʻu, an island in American Samoa.
Cultural relativism: The principle that beliefs and practices should be understood within their cultural context. Mead compared Samoan practices with American assumptions about proper development.
Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth: Derek Freeman’s 1983 book arguing that Mead’s Samoan findings were unreliable. This book presented the best-known sustained challenge to Mead’s account.
Samoan sexuality: Sexual beliefs and practices in Samoan communities, shaped by social norms and historical change. Mead’s account of adolescent sexuality became one of the book’s most debated claims.
Participant observation: A research method in which investigators observe a community while taking part in its activities. The method raises questions about how an outsider’s presence affects evidence.

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