Fieldwork allows anthropologists to collect information and experience a part of a society directly. It helps anthropologists understand and see things that provide the most accurate and real information. Although fieldwork can provide firsthand information and good explanations, it might not be representative of an entire society and hold up over time. Margaret Mead’s fieldwork in Samoa led to findings of sexual freedom of adolescents during the 1920’s, when Derek Freeman conducted research in another part of Samoa in the 1960’s, he found that adolescents were sexually restrictive. Freeman wrote in his findings that Mead got most things wrong. I agree with Paul Shankman that both anthropologists could have been right in certain aspects. The
