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by Author Gary Ferraro with Video Highlights
By Gary Ferraro
With the costs of college education continuing to skyrocket, more and more
parents are asking their college-aged children some very practical questions.
For example, parents want to know why their children are majoring in
anthropology. Behind such a question is the more pragmatic question: What
kind of job can you get with a B.A. in anthropology?
Opportunities for employment with the U.S. federal government are wide
ranging. In the area of international development, an increasing number of
jobs are opening up for people who understand cross-cultural behavior. Such
organizations as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and
the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)-organizations that
administer foreign aid-hire people trained in anthropology to provide the
background needed to implement certain programs of planned change
successfully, such as programs for family planning, agricultural
development, educational reform, and disease prevention. As many
development agencies throughout the world have learned the hard way, the
most well-intentioned programs of planned change can have disastrous
results unless something is known about the cultures of the target
populations. Before spending (in some cases) minions of dollars on
development programs, such organizations as CIDA and USAID want to have
as much relevant information as possible about the local cultures.