IB Diploma Programme Social and Cultural Anthropology SL (first assessment 2019; 2017 guide). This topic equips ENGAGING WITH ANTHROPOLOGY, examined in Paper 1 (40% at SL): the language of the discipline (the nine key concepts), the practice (participant observation and its research tradition), and anthropological thinking (reflexivity and the making of cultural assumptions explicit). The unseen-text paper asks the course's big questions. This handout teaches the concept kit, the comparative gaze and reflexivity. All worked examples are original classroom vignettes, not ethnographic publications.

Must-know for engaging with anthropology:

The discipline thinks through nine key concepts 核心概念: belief and knowledge, change, culture 文化, identity, materiality, power 权力, social relations, society and symbolism 象征. A concept is a lens, not a label: naming power in a greeting explains who bows to whom; naming symbolism explains why the same bow can mean respect in one corridor and mockery in another. Arguments in papers run concept PLUS evidence, never concept alone.

Worked vignette. The lunch queue, read through three lenses: culture (first-come-first-served as a learned, not natural, rule), power (the queue-jumper tolerated when older, punished when younger), symbolism (the tray as the individual-portion marker).

Anthropology is distinct among the social sciences in its research tradition of participant observation 参与观察: living the social group's life while watching it, long enough for the strange to become legible and the familiar to become strange. Comparison is the discipline's engine: ethnography 民族志 (the written account of a social group) is read against other ethnographies so that cultural assumptions 文化预设 become explicit: the queue only looks natural until one has queued elsewhere.

Worked vignette, continued. A student who has eaten in a communal-sharing school reads the individual-tray queue as cold; a student raised on queues reads the shared table as chaotic: both are describing the same room with different assumptions, and anthropology is the discipline that says so out loud.

Turning the lens on the observer is reflexivity 反身性: the anthropologist's age, role and expectation shape what the field shows (the teacher watching the corridor sees rule-breaking; the new student sees navigation). Paper 1's unseen text carries the course's big questions 大问题 (how are we the same as and different from each other; how does the local connect to the global): the answer connects the passage's detail, a named concept and ethnographic material.

Worked vignette, concluded. Asked the sameness-and-difference question on a queueing passage, the answer runs: same (all groups order access to scarce things), different (the rule learned, the queue's meaning, who may bend it), evidenced from the vignette plus one read ethnography.

• The nine concepts as lenses, each argued with evidence (concepts).

• Participant observation as the discipline's distinct method (method).

• The observer positioned; assumptions made explicit (reflexivity).

• Ethnography read comparatively, not alone (comparison).

• The worked queue vignette and its three lenses understood (worked). Boundary notes: the examiner must see the discipline: concepts named, ethnographic evidence grounded, the observer positioned. All worked examples are original classroom vignettes, not ethnographic publications.

IB Diploma Programme Social and Cultural Anthropology SL (first assessment 2019; 2017 guide). This topic equips ENGAGING WITH ETHNOGRAPHY, examined in Paper 2 (40% at SL): the nine AREAS OF INQUIRY in three groups (one from each group), read as ethnographic material and compared through the key concepts. Section A connects a key concept, an area of inquiry and a real-world issue; section B answers a question from one area other than the one used in section A. This handout teaches the areas, the ethnographic read and the comparison. All worked examples are original classroom vignettes, not ethnographic publications.

Must-know for engaging with ethnography:

The syllabus’s areas of inquiry 探究领域 come in three groups, and the course takes one from each: GROUP 1 (classifying the world; health, illness and healing; the body), GROUP 2 (belonging 归属; communication, expression and technology; movement, time and space), GROUP 3 (conflict; development; production, exchange and consumption). An area is a field of social life, not a place: the body can be studied in a school, a clinic or a gym.

Worked vignette. Two areas carried through the school: the morning greeting ritual (belonging, group 2) and the tuck-shop barter economy (production, exchange and consumption, group 3).

In this course ethnographic material 民族志材料 is read with four questions: the VIEWPOINT of the anthropologist (who watched, from where), the research METHODS (how long, how close), the CONCEPTS it illuminates, and its ETHICS (consent, anonymity, harm). The discipline's demand: the material is grounded (a described scene, not a generalization about a whole society), and the read names what the material can and cannot show.

Worked vignette, continued. The greeting ritual, read: viewpoint (a participant for one term), methods (daily observation plus twelve interviews), concepts (belonging through ritual; identity through greeting-form choice), ethics (names changed, the school's consent).

Paper 2 asks for connection: section A links a key concept, an area of inquiry and a REAL-WORLD issue (inequality, violence, poverty, mobility, environment); section B answers from the other areas studied. The craft: comparison 比较研究 across the areas through shared concepts: the greeting and the barter both distribute recognition (belonging and power), one through ritual form, the other through price and favour.

Worked vignette, concluded. An inequality question answered from the two areas: the greeting includes and excludes by form (who may use the shorthand greeting); the barter prices the same students differently (the regular's discount); same concept, two mechanisms, both evidenced from the vignettes.

• The three groups and their areas; one from each group (groups).

• Group 1, group 2 and group 3 areas named on demand (group 1-3).

• Material read by viewpoint, methods, concepts, ethics; grounded (read).

• Section A's triangle (concept, area, real-world issue) connected (worked).

• The worked greeting-and-barter comparison understood (worked). Boundary notes: the examiner must see the discipline: concepts named, ethnographic evidence grounded, the observer positioned. All worked examples are original classroom vignettes, not ethnographic publications.

IB Diploma Programme Social and Cultural Anthropology SL (first assessment 2019; 2017 guide). This topic equips the internal assessment, ENGAGING IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRACTICE (20% at SL): the student's own limited fieldwork (an observation report; an extension of the initial fieldwork; a second fieldwork data collection and analysis; a critical reflection), conducted ethically with appropriate methods, the data interpreted and the practice itself critically reflected on. This handout teaches the fieldwork cycle, the ethics discipline and the write-up. All worked examples are original classroom projects, not ethnographic publications.

Must-know for anthropological practice:

The internal assessment is the student's own fieldwork 田野调查: a question worth asking, a site that can answer it, methods chosen to fit (observation; counting and mapping; short interviews), data kept in fieldnotes 田野笔记, and interpretation that connects the data to a concept. The cycle runs twice: an initial observation report, then an extension with a second data collection and analysis, each followed by critical reflection.

Worked project. The corridor-flows project: question (how does the corridor's traffic order itself at break?); methods (a flow map drawn at the same minute on five days; a count of door-holding; three short interviews); concept (movement, time and space, read through power).

Three rules are non-negotiable: informed consent 知情同意 (the studied know they are studied, and may decline), anonymity 匿名 (names and identifying details changed), and do-no-harm (nothing collected that could damage a participant), with school permission coming first. The observer's own standpoint, positionality 立场性, is named in the report: the observer's role (a corridor user themselves) shapes what the field shows, and the strongest reports say so and use it.

Worked project, continued. The project's consent: the form class heard the project explained and could opt out of the interviews; the map anonymises individuals into flows; the reflection names the observer as a daily corridor user whose own route was one of the mapped.

The report presents question, method, data and interpretation, with the methodological choices justified (why a five-day same-minute map rather than one observation: comparability). The critical reflection 评估反思 judges the practice itself: what the methods could not see (the map misses meaning; the interviews miss the silent), what the second collection changed, and what the anthropologist would do next.

Worked project, concluded. The write-up's finding: door-holding follows form (the narrow door's queue holds itself) and familiarity (the regular's door held open), so the corridor orders movement through learned micro-rules; the reflection: the count saw behaviour but not meaning, and the next study would add greetings to the map.

• The cycle run twice: observe, collect, interpret, reflect (cycle).

• Methods chosen to fit the question, choices justified (methods).

• Consent, anonymity, do-no-harm, school permission (ethics).

• Data interpreted toward a concept, not displayed (data).

• The worked corridor project and its reflection understood (worked). Boundary notes: the examiner must see the discipline: concepts named, ethnographic evidence grounded, the observer positioned. All worked examples are original classroom vignettes, not ethnographic publications.