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Copyright by Sandra Epperson Wolf 2002 FINDING HER POWER THROUGH COLLABORATION: A BIOGRAPHY OF LOUISE SPINDLER by Sandra Epperson Wolf, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2002 Dedicated to – George Dearborn Spindler Professor Emeritus, Stanford University Louise’s devoted husband and collaborator and Enrique (Henry) T. Trueba Professor Emeritus, the University of Texas at Austin the Spindlers’ student and collaborator, and my mentor Acknowledgements With Appreciation and Gratitude – To George Spindler, who for 18 months very patiently allowed me to discuss in great detail his life and work with Louise, and provided me much information heretofore unpublished. I would not and could not have written about Louise with you. Knowing you is a highlight of my life. To Henry Trueba, whose inspiration as a teacher, scholar, and caring human being is in evidence throughout this dissertation. I cannot imagine my graduate experience without you. To my University of Texas faculty committee, each a distinguished scholar: Don Carleton, historian and Director of the Center for American History, and education professor Lisa Goldstein, who share the talent for creative and memorable teaching; Oscar Mink, whose special brand of intelligence and energy were a welcome addition; and O.L. Davis, Jr., who promoted my work by choosing me as the local president of the honor society, Kappa Delta Pi, and helped to secure two scholarships for my study. To Chara Haeussler Bohan, who gave me good advice throughout the process; Chara’s dissertation, also a biography, won Kappa Delta Pi’s “Dissertation of the Year” in 2000. Sara Janes, National Merit winner, Plan II English major, and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, provided a thorough reading of the final draft and offered v many helpful comments, which are in evidence. To my family for their continued support, love, and encouragement: my mother, Elizabeth, an elementary teacher for 40 years, who, like Louise, found her first job as the teacher in a one-room school in central Illinois; my brother, Roger, a talented special education teacher; my husband of 36 years, Tom, a philosophy professor at Gonzaga University, practicing lawyer for 15 years, businessman and entrepreneur; the Wolf family, parents Ben and Helen, four siblings, eight nieces and nephews, and two grand nieces; and our terrific son, Justin, a 2000 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in anthropology. To the School of Education at Texas for living up to its reputation as a leader in the field and allowing me to pursue a broad course of study: some 20 courses, including two in the history department, two in the Language Arts and Literacy component of Curriculum and Instruction, and a summer of study with visiting scholar Jorge Gonzales, whose classes included highly motivated and talented students from the Latin American Studies program. To the insights and friendship of the over 100 UT students with whom I studied, and several with whom I wrote collaborative studies--all of this experience contributed to my understanding of Louise Spindler’s work. vi To my advisor, Mary S. Black, my gratitude rises to a special level. Mary was, from the outset, enthusiastic about Louise Spindler as a biographical subject, recognizing that in a carefully written dissertation, Louise’s collaborative work with George would be seen as an asset. She had studied the Spindlers’ work in her undergraduate courses, and Professor Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, a Spindler collaborator, had served on her dissertation committee at Harvard. I looked forward to each of my meetings with Mary, and I actually enjoyed producing the revisions. Because of Mary, I worked up to my potential as a researcher and writer, not tiring of the process, and in fact, finding it energizing and uplifting. This dissertation is already in the revision process for publication, with Mary Black as co-author. vii FINDING HER POWER THROUGH COLLABORATION: A BIOGRAPHY OF LOUISE SPINDLER Publication No.______ Sandra Epperson Wolf, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2002 Supervisor: Mary S. Black Mary Louise Schaubel Spindler (1917-1997) was an anthropologist, scholar, writer, university teacher, and professional editor. She was the first person to earn a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University. Her interest in recording people’s attitudes and perceptions about their values, choices, and many other personal aspects of their culture officially began in 1948 when she undertook research on the changing life of the Menominee Indians of Wisconsin. Her insistence that women be studied as individuals apart from men was a pioneering idea. Her comparative study of Menominee women’s acculturation with men may have been the first of its kind. Although Louise Spindler published two books and four book chapters alone, the volume of her work was created in collaboration with her husband, Stanford Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Education, George D. Spindler. For the 54 years of her marriage, Louise Spindler co- viii wrote, co-edited, and co-taught with George Spindler. Together the Spindlers published 40 books or book chapters, six of which were anthologies; edited 224 case studies in anthropology and/or education, which became successful texts for college and university courses nationwide; and from 1963-1965, co-edited the prestigious American Anthropologist. Of equal importance with her work in anthropology are her contributions to understanding the culture of schools. Based on her work as an anthropologist, Louise determined that schools are “intervenors” in the on-going process of learning and “transmitters of culture,” with teachers as “cultural agents.” Louise reinforced that teachers must understand their core self and that of their students, if their work together is to be successful. Whenever cultural discontinuities are addressed in schools of education, Louise Spindler’s work is often at the forefront. This dissertation discusses the early influences and formative experiences of Louise Spindler’s life; assesses how the remarkable collaboration with George Spindler took shape and endured; analyzes their innovative classroom at Stanford, where a conservative estimate of the number of students who studied with them is 25,000; and traces the sub- field of the anthropology of education where much of Louise Spindler’s research found its academic home. The overall research question became, “What is Louise Spindler’s lasting legacy?” ix Table of Contents Photographs: Louise Spindler …………………………………………………..xiv Louise and George Spindler……………………………………...xv Chapter I -- Introduction to Louise Spindler (1917-1997)…………………….1 Significance of Louise Spindler’s Work………………………… 12 Methodology………………………………………………………. 18 The Position of this Study within Educational Biography and Women’s Studies ……………………………….. 31 Chapter II -- Early Influences and Formative Experience (1917-1948)……...37 Family and Childhood……………………………………………. 37 College Years……………………………………………………….43 Teaching in Public Schools………………………………………. 54 Courtship………………………………………………………….. 57 Marriage…………………………………………………………... 59 George: An Intellectual and Emotional Match for Louise…………………………………………………………. 61 Louise’s Life as an Army Wife and Mother…………………….. 64 Graduate School………………………………………………….. 68 Louise and George’s Early Adult Experiences: Complements and Contrasts…………………………………….. 70 Significance of Louise’s Early Adult Experiences……………… 74 x Chapter III -- Pioneering Fieldwork…………………………………………….. 80 The Menominee Study……………………………………………………. 80 The Study of Menominee Women (1948-1954)…………………………. 86 Purpose…………………………………………………………… 86 Methodology……………………………………………………… 92 Observation……………………………………………….. 92 Strategies………………………………………………….. 95 Comparison of the Blood Indian Women with the Menominee………………………………………………………106 Impact of Native American Fieldwork on Later Research …………………………………………………………110 Development of the Collaboration………………………………………..112 The Significance of the Collaborative Research Technique……………………………………………………… 116 Chapter IV--The Stanford Years (1950-1997)………………………………….. 123 Earning the First Ph.D. in Anthropology (1956)………………………...123 Innovations in Pedagogy…………………………………………………. 133 Perfecting the Case Study for Classroom Use…………………... 133 Developing the Commentaries………………………………….. 142 Bringing Her Fieldwork to the Classroom……………………… 145 Teaching Students to be Ethnographers………………. 146 Transcultural Sensitization……………………………… 149 How the Spindler and Spindler Teaching Collaboration Worked………………………………………………….. 151 xi Family Life…………………………………………………………………156 Significance of Louise Spindler’s Time at Stanford……………………. 164 Chapter V-- Pioneering Fieldwork Continues in Schools……………………... 169 The School Studies (1959-1988)………………………………………….. 169 Methodology……………………………………………………………… 175 Observation……………………………………………………….. 175 The Instrumental Activities Inventory (IAI) in School…………………………………………………………... 180 The Cross-Cultural School Study of Roseville, Wisconsin (1983)……………………………………………187 The Cross-Cultural, Comparative Reflective Interview (CCCRI)…………………………………………... 194 Louise Spindler’s Role in the School Studies…………………………... 196 Significance………………………………………………………………. 199 Chapter VI—The Rise of the Anthropology of Education……………………. 206 The 1954 Conference…………………………………………………….. 206 Growth of the Field……………………………………………………….