Franz Boas

High school (ages 12+)
People & Society

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/franz-boas

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. When was Franz Boas born?July 9, 1858
2. When did Franz Boas die?December 21, 1942 (age 84)
3. Where was Franz Boas born?Minden, Prussia (now Germany)
4. What did Franz Boas study before becoming an anthropologist?He earned doctorates in physics and geography in Germany.
5. Why did Franz Boas decide to study the Inuit people on Baffin Island?He was fascinated by their language, social structures, and worldview. He realized that existing theories didn't fit the Inuit people.

Cultural Relativism: The principle that an individual's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture, rejecting universal standards of judgment.
Scientific Racism: A discredited set of beliefs and practices that claim to justify discrimination and prejudice based on supposed biological differences between racial groups.
Historical Particularism: The theory that each culture has its own unique historical development and should be understood on its own terms, rather than through universal evolutionary stages.
Ethnography: The scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures, typically based on fieldwork.