Mary Anne Pitman, PhD

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Mary Anne Pitman, PhD, is a professor of educational foundations and head of the division of educational studies at the University of Cincinnati, where she has been on the faculty since 1986. She received her doctorate, with a focus on educational anthropology, from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and a bachelor of arts degree in English and education from Mount Mary College in Milwaukee, Wis.

Pitman is an educational anthropologist with a research focus on the social and cultural context of learning and schooling. Her interest in home schooling stemmed from her quest to study how children acquire knowledge outside an institutional environment. She focused her work on about 25 households in the northeastern U.S. that had formed their own parent cooperative, which included a board on which Pitman served. Furthermore, Pitman lived with six different home schooling families as she conducted her research. She adds she has stayed in touch with these children as they develop into young adults, and she continues to examine home schooling trends in greater Cincinnati.

Pitman is both a researcher and author and is co-editor of the book Home Schooling: Political, Historical and Pedagogical Perspectives (1991). Her most recent publication, the book entitled Caring as Tenacity: Stories of Urban School Survival, was released last year.

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