Coming of Age in Samoa
The book details the sexual life of teenagers in Samoan society in the early 20th century and theorizes that culture has a leading influence on psychosexual development.
- author
- Margaret Mead
- field
- Anthropology
- subject
- Adolescent girls in Samoan society
- key_claim
- Culture has a leading influence on psychosexual development
Lore & Background
The book launched Mead as a pioneering researcher and as the most famous anthropologist in the world. It became the most widely read book in anthropology until Napoleon Chagnon's Yanomamö: The Fierce People overtook it. The book has sparked years of ongoing and intense debate on questions pertaining to society, culture, and science, and is a key text in the nature versus nurture debate.
Reader's Guide
Coming of Age in Samoa remains a landmark work in anthropology, though it has been heavily contested. In the 1980s, Derek Freeman argued that Mead was hoaxed into believing Samoan culture had more relaxed sexual norms than Western culture. However, several anthropologists rejected Freeman's criticism, accusing him of cherry-picking data and misrepresenting both Mead's research and his own interviews. Mead's field work was also scrutinized, with major discrepancies found between her published statements and field data. Some Samoans have criticized her claims, especially that adolescent promiscuity was socially acceptable in 1920s Samoa. The book's legacy is thus one of both foundational influence and enduring controversy, shaping discussions on adolescence, gender, social norms, and the role of culture in human development.
Did You Know?
- Mead studied 68 young women between the ages of 9 and 20 over six to nine months on the island of Taʻū.
- Mead's advisor Franz Boas wrote the foreword, noting that standards of courtesy and ethics differ across cultures.
- Mead described the period before marriage as the high point of a Samoan girl's life.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who wrote Coming of Age in Samoa and what is the book about?
Margaret Mead authored this 1928 anthropological study that documents the daily routines, social norms, and sexual experiences of adolescent girls in a small Samoan village during the early 1900s.
What is the central claim of Coming of Age in Samoa?
Mead argues that cultural environment, rather than universal biology, plays the dominant role in shaping how young people develop their psychosexual identities and navigate the transition into adulthood.
Why is Coming of Age in Samoa considered a landmark in anthropology?
The book provided early, widely cited evidence that adolescent experiences vary dramatically across societies, challenging the prevailing assumption that teenage emotional turmoil is a fixed biological constant.
Where and when did Mead conduct her fieldwork for the book?
She carried out her research on Ta'ū, a small island in the Samoan archipelago, during the early 1920s, living among and observing local teenage girls and their communities.
What major controversy surrounds Coming of Age in Samoa?
In the 1980s, anthropologist Derek Freeman publicly disputed Mead's findings, claiming her Samoan informants had deliberately misled her, which ignited a decades-long debate over ethnographic methodology and the reliability of single-site fieldwork.
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