Dr. Cati Coe, Associate Professor (BA, Wesleyan University; PhD University of Pennsylvania), teaches Sociology of Education, Individual and Society, and a range of courses in cultural anthropology. Her research has focused on the politics of culture in educational contexts, and she has carried out extensive field research both in Ghana and in American inner cities.

Dr. Coe recently completed her book, The Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools: Nationalism, Youth, and the Transformation of Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 2005). In this book, Coe reveals that the Ghanaian state's effort to forge a national culture through its schools has created a paradox: while Ghana encourages its educators to teach about local cultural traditions, those traditions are transformed as they are taught in school classrooms. See, book cover

Dr. Coe is the co-founder of the Working Group on Childhood & Migration, a growing group of scholars from a variety of disciplines and from around the world to share our knowledge about the experiences of children in migration.

Professor Coe also produced and narrated a video, titled "Turning an Event Into Fieldnotes: A Ghanaian Example," from excerpts from her fieldwork in Ghana. The video shows a student cultural performance in a competition between schools. Dr. Coe's commentary is designed to instruct students about the kinds of things they should look for when doing ethnographic research. Requires RealPlayer (25 minutes)

Dr. Coe comes to Rutgers from the Institute for Community Research in Hartford, Connecticut, where she researched student discourse around problem-solving, drugs and sex in the context of a risk-prevention program. Before that, she was an ethnographer for the Philadelphia Education Fund.

Professor Coe is currently working on a study of the impact of transnational migration on Ghanaian family life, particularly on arrangements to raise and train children. Drawing on interviews with caregivers, children, and migrant parents in Ghana and the US, participant observation in the African diaspora in the US, and historical research in Ghana, she aims to understand how traditionally flexible family arrangements make the mobility required under global capitalism more emotionally bearable. The research will culminate in a book manuscript and journal articles.

Cati Coe and Bonnie Nastasi. "Stories and Selves: Managing the Self through Problem-Solving in School," Anthropology and Education Quarterly 37:2 (2006): 180-198

The Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools: Nationalism, Youth, and the Transformation of Knowledge in Ghana, published by the University of Chicago Press (June 2005). For a description, see
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/153625.ctl

“Educating an African Leadership: Achimota and the Teaching of African Culture in the Gold Coast,” Africa Today 49:3 (2002): 23-46

“Recuperating Tradition while Expanding Schooling,” Anthropology News March 2002: 8

“Learning How to Find Out: Theories of Knowledge and Learning in Field Research,” Field Methods 13:4 (2001): 392-411

“A Dangerous Dance: Teaching Heritage in Ghana’s Secondary Schools” (photographic essay), The World & I (March 2000): 206-213

“The Education of the Folk: Peasant Schools and Folklore Scholarship,” Journal of American Folklore 113:447 (1999): 20-43

"Pawning in Akuapem, Ghana: Thinking about Rights-in-Children" African Studies Association, San Francisco, November 2006, as part of a panel I organized on "Relatedness and Rights in Child Fosterage in West Africa"

"Ghana's School Cultural Competitions," School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana, Legon, June 2006

"Child Fosterage among Ghanaian Parents in the United States," American Anthropological Association, Washington DC, November 2005, as part of a Society for Urban, National, and Transnational Anthropology invited panel on "Global Childhood: The Use of Child Fosterage among Transnational Migrants" (organized with Rachel Reynolds)

“Strategies of Ghanaian Immigrant Women to Raise Their Children,” Institute for Research on Women seminar on Diasporas and Migrations, November 2005

"The Public Display of Heritage: How Culture Became Drumming and Dancing in Ghana, 1957-1978," Center for African Studies brown bag series, Rutgers University, December 2004

“The State Distribution of Visibility: Young People and School Cultural Competitions,” African Studies Association meeting, New Orleans, November 2004

“Schools, Youth, and Political Participation in Ghana,” Childhood Studies Seminar, Rutgers University, Camden, March 2004; and 11th Annual African Studies Consortium workshop, University of Pennsylvania, October 2003

“Development Morality Plays: Christian Identities and National Imaginings of Ghanaian Secondary-School Girls,” African Studies Association, Boston, MA, November 2003

“Nationalizing and Localizing Drum Language: Schools, Youth, and Performance in Ghana.” African Studies Association, Washington DC, December 2002

“Slogans and Stories: The Reproduction of Cultural Models in Drug Education,” American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, LA, November 2002

“Orchestrating Modern Selves: School Cultural Festivals and Competing Modernities in Ghana,” African Studies Seminar, University of Pennsylvania, November 2002

“Problem-Solving as a New Narrative Genre.” Canadian Anthropology Society and Society for the Anthropology of North American joint meeting, Windsor, Ontario, May 2002

“Pedagogies and Politics of ‘Culture’: Chiefly Authority, the State, and the Teaching of Cultural Traditions in Ghana.” Revolution and Pedagogy conference, Ohio State University, April 2002

“Development Morality Plays: The Orchestration of Self and the Evaluation of Tradition in Ghana’s Schools.” Yale University, African Studies brown bag lunch series, February 2002

“‘Culture’ as School Knowledge: The Construction of Tradition and Authority in Ghana.” American Anthropological Association, Washington DC, November 2001

“What Do You See? Complementary Perspectives on a Classroom Intervention Project.” Ethnography in Education Forum, Philadelphia PA , March 2001

RESEARCH COUNCIL GRANT, 2006-2007
Rutgers University
Project Title: "Children's Rights and Child Circulation in Ghana"

CHILDHOOD STUDIES GRANT, 2006-2007
Rutgers University
Project Title: "Children's Rights and Child Circulation in Ghana"

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, JULY 2006
Short course on anthropological survey research methods at Duke University Marine Lab

INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN SEMINAR FELLOW, 2005-2006
Rutgers University
Seminar on "Diasporas and Migrations"

RESEARCH COUNCIL GRANT, 2004-2005
Rutgers University
Project Title: “Globalization and Education: Ghanaian Immigrant Strategies to Educate Their Children”

BILDNER FOUNDATION INTERCULTURAL FELLOW, 2003-2004
Rutgers University
Project Title: “Representing Culture in Classrooms”

DISSERTATION AWARD, HONORABLE MENTION, 2001
Council of Anthropology and Education, American Anthropological Association

ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE, 2000-2001
Spencer Foundation
On the Interrelationship of Anthropology and Education

DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP, 1999-2000
School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania
Project Title: “Drumming and Dancing in Ghanaian Schools: The Politics of Heritage Revival in a Postcolonial State”

FULBRIGHT GRANT, 1998-1999
Institute of International Education
Project Title: “Cultural Politics, Education, and Development in Ghana”

FORD FOUNDATION DISSERTATION DEVELOPMENT TRAVEL GRANT, 1997
Workshop on the Problematics of Identities and States, University of Pennsylvania
Project Title: “The Politics of Culture and Identity: International Development Organizations and Education in Ghana”

GRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS, 1994-1997
Department of Folklore & Folklife, University of Pennsylvania

MACEDWARD LEACH PRIZE FOR THE BEST PAPER IN FOLKLORE, 1996
Department of Folklore & Folklife, University of Pennsylvania
For “Histories of Empire, Nation, and City: Four Interpretations of the Empire Exhibition, Johannesburg, 1936"