Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

III. Methods and tools
Margaret Mead’s anthropological
encountered
that Samoan adolescents’ experience
argument
puberty was markedly different from their
of
counterparts’. Next we encounter new
American
Epstein, former editor-in-chief of
Robert
Today, wrote the following in
Psychology
assuming that the brain
“Automatically
behavior is problematic because
causes
know that an individual’s genes and
we
history—and even his
environmental
her own behavior—mold the brain
or
time. There is clear evidence that
over
unique features that may exist in
any
brains of teens—to the limited extent
the
such features exist—are the result of
that
influences rather than the cause of
social
argument confronts us with
Epstein’s
classic problem of establishing
the
whether it is brain biology or the
causation:
that determines behaviour.
environment
there is disagreement among the
When
TOK helps us to evaluate the claims
experts,
counterclaims. Consider the following
and
then discuss your answers with a
questions,
What would constitute sufficient and
1.
evidence that the source or
compelling
of the set of “teenage” behaviours
cause
biological? What would convince you
is
How would this evidence need to be
2.
in order to be reliable?
produced
3. On what grounds can such evidence be
should examine whether the idea of
We
is more of a social construct
“teenagehood”
idea in II.2 in the context of the Mead-
this
controversy. Epstein argues that
Freeman
idea of teenagehood stems from the 1904
the
Adolescence by psychologist G. Stanley
book
written in the context of the industrial
Hall,
mass immigration and rapid
revolution,
of US cities. Hall paid much less
urbanization
to teenagers from other contexts but
attention
ideas have nonetheless become entrenched
his
a popular imagination of teenagers. A
in
review of research on teens in 186 lessindustrialized
1991
societies found that:
percent had no word for ‘adolescence’, that
60
spent almost all their time with adults, that
teens
showed almost no signs of psychopathology,
they
that antisocial behavior in young males was
and
absent in more than half these cultures
completely
extremely mild in cultures in which it did occur.
and
on Epstein’s comments, you might
Based
that teenagehood is a WEIRD construct.
conclude
would such a far-reaching conclusion be
But
There is an important difference
justified?
questioning ideas and casting them
between
outentirely.
more signicant, a series of long-term studies
Even
in motion in the 1980s by anthropologists
set
Whiting and John Whiting of Harvard
Beatrice
suggest that teen trouble begins to
University
in other cultures soon after the introduction
appear
certain Western inuences, especially Western-
of
schooling, television programs and movies …
style
with these modern observations, many
Consistent
note that through most of recorded human
historians
the teen years were a relatively peaceful time
history
transition to adulthood. Teens were not trying to
of
away from adults; rather they were learning
break
become adults. Some historians … suggest that
to
tumultuous period we call adolescence is a very
the
phenomenon—not much more than a
recent
old. century
8
perspectives on this theme.
For reflection
Problems of causation in teenage
risk-seeking behaviour
Scientific American
teen turmoil.” (Epstein 2007)
(Epstein 2007)
peer, in a small group or as a class.
of Epstein’s argument?
challenged?
(Epstein 2007)
than a fact of human biology. We explored
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