Robert A. LeVine

Robert A. LeVine
File:Robert A. Levine, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University.jpg
Born	(1932-03-27)March 27, 1932 Brooklyn, New York
Residence	Belmont, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Fields	Psychological anthropology Human Development
Institutions	Harvard University
Alma mater	Harvard University (Ph.D.)

Robert Alan LeVine is a leading figure in the field of psychological anthropology, best known for his empirical research in the area of comparative human development and his unifying conceptual framework to study culture, behavior, and personality. LeVine’s work over the last several decades has covered and influenced several disciplines, including human development and psychology, psychological anthropology, demography and international education.

Biography

LeVine was born on March 27, 1932 in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in Englewood, New Jersey and graduated from Dwight Morrow High School in 1949. He studied at the University of Chicago, where he received a B.A. in 1951 followed by an M.A. in anthropology in 1953. His mentors at the University of Chicago included David Riesman and Robert Redfield. Given his keen interest in exploring interdisciplinary perspectives, he went on to study at Harvard, working under Clyde Kluckhohn and John W. M. Whiting, and graduating with a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology in 1958. He also underwent psychoanalysis and received a Certificate from the Institute for Psychoanalysis, Chicago in 1971.

LeVine taught anthropology and political science at Northwestern University (1958-1960); and human development, anthropology, and psychiatry at the University of Chicago (1960-1976). Following his years at the University of Chicago, LeVine taught human development, anthropology and education at Harvard University. where he was the Roy Edward Larsen Professor of Human Development and Education and Professor of Anthropology until he retired in 1998 at the age of 66. He continued to teach one course a year at the Harvard Graduate School of Education until 2006. He was a distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Hong Kong from 2001-2002, a Visiting Professor of Anthropology at Boston University from 2007-2009, and a Visiting Professor in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago for the spring quarter, 2008.

LeVine is a healthy survivor of pancreatic cancer, which was successfully treated by surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital on July 11, 2000.

Major Influences and Contributions

His intellectual influences include Clifford Geertz (his faculty colleague for ten years), Heinz Kohut (Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, where LeVine was a research candidate), Melford Spiro (with whom he taught in the mid-1960s), and Donald T. Campbell (with whom he collaborated on The Cross-Cultural Study of Ethnocentrism). His research on child rearing and development in Africa and training at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis influenced and expanded his perspectives. His orientation shifted toward psychoanalytic interpretation of cultural content and symbols while remaining empirical in studying behaviors. Drawing on the above experiences, he produced Culture Behavior and Personality in 1973, in which he put forth a new framework for psychocultural research and which established him as a major figure in the field of psychological anthropology. His Cross-Cultural Study in Child Psychology was another important contribution, replacing Margaret Mead’s chapter in the third edition of Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology. After 1973 and during his years at Harvard, his contributions moved into broad areas of person-centered ethnography - focused on cultural narratives of the self, parenting and early childhood (focused on the cultural influence on universal parental goals, and the influence of early experience on adult personalities) and schooling in developing countries and their influence on maternal behavior. On the latter, and in what was widely seen as LeVine’s intellectual versatility and breath, he investigated the mechanisms through which schooling influences demographic change. With his wife Sarah and their students, he conducted studies of maternal literacy in Mexico, Nepal, Venezuela, and Zambia. Their data presented in the 2012 volume Literacy and Mothering: How Women’s Schooling Changes the Lives of the World’s Children (winner of the 2013 Eleanor E. Maccoby Book Prize of the American Psychological Association). illustrates that even rudimentary literacy skills acquired in low-quality schools gives women the cognitive skills to more easily navigate in modern health facilities.

LeVine has published over 15 books and over 100 articles on a wide range of topics in psychological anthropology and human development.

Awards and Recognitions

LeVine is Emeritus Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development and Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. He was chairman of Harvard’s Committee on African Studies in the late 1970s and was President of the Society for Psychological Anthropology between 1980–81 and was awarded its Career Contributions Award in 1997. He was also chairman of the Social Science Research Council from 1980-83. He also received the 2001 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Educational Research from the American Educational Research Association. He was a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1971–72) and a Guggenheim Memorial Fellow (2004-2005). LeVine has received recognition and has taught at universities in countries as diverse as Kenya, Hong Kong, Sweden, Mexico. LeVine was also a Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden, 1992–93 and is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Major Works

• LeVine, R.A.& Campbell, D.T. (1972). Ethnocentrism: Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes, and Group Behavior. New York: John Wiley.
• LeVine, R.A. (1973, 1983). Culture, Behavior, and Personality: An Introduction to the Comparative Study of Psychosocial Adaptation. Chicago: Aldine.
• LeVine, R.A., Dixon, S., LeVine, S., Richman, A., Keefer, C., Leiderman, P.H. & Brazelton, T.B. (1994). Child Care and Culture: Lessons from Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Shimizu, H. and LeVine, R.A., eds. (2001). Japanese Frames of Mind: Cultural Perspectives on Human Development. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• LeVine, R. A., LeVine, S. E., Schnell-Anzola, B., Rowe, M. & Dexter, E. (2012). Literacy and Mothering: How Women’s Schooling Changes the Lives of the World’s Children. New York: Oxford University Press.