ASSEB HS Anthropology case studies
ASSEB HS Anthropology · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The ASSEB HS Anthropology credential is a high-school-level examination that assesses whether a candidate can think like an anthropologist across the discipline's four traditional fields. It suits secondary students building a social-science portfolio, candidates preparing for university anthropology coursework, and independent learners who want a structured benchmark for their reading. The ASSEB HS Anthropology case studies are 5 cases and about 3,225 words.
1The Roster That Wasn't a Sampling Frame
A doctoral candidate is studying informal e-waste sorting in three peri-urban settlements. Site A has roughly 210 workers; the cooperative's registration list names 58 members, and the other 150-odd work informally, many of them women who sort at home.
672 words, about 3 min2The Mandatory Race Field
A county medical examiner sends a bioarchaeology lab a partial skeleton recovered from desert scrub: a gracile cranium with 7 of the 11 standard craniometric landmarks measurable, a fragmented pelvis preserving only the left auricular surface, a left femur (455 mm), and three worn molars. No personal effects were recovered.
625 words, about 3 min3One Site, Two Components, Forty-Five Days
A cultural resource management firm holds a 45-day permit to excavate a 2.1-hectare site before a highway bypass. The deposits include a shell midden, two pit features that truncate one another, and a charcoal-rich hearth.
648 words, about 3 min4Tone Marks and a Dead Elder's Recordings
A linguist has 14 months of fieldwork on Təmey, spoken by nine fluent adults, all over 70, plus about 40 passive understanders. The community school wants a transitional bilingual primer for grades 1-3.
626 words, about 3 min5Household Heads and a Cash Transfer
An NGO is designing a three-year conditional cash transfer for school attendance in a region where the dominant ethnic group is matrilineal: lineage membership, inheritance of groves, and house rights pass from mother to daughter, while day-to-day authority over children is exercised by the mother's brother. The NGO's baseline survey used a standard household roster: 412 households, each with a 'male household head' bank account.
654 words, about 3 min