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ANTHRO 4

Culture and Communication

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Required as preparation for both bachelor's degrees. Introduction to study of communication from anthropological perspective. Formal linguistic methods compared with ethnographically oriented methods focused on context-bound temporal unfolding of communicative activities. Topics include language in everyday life and ritual events, socialization, literacy, multilingualism, miscommunication, political discourse, and art-making as cultural activity. P/NP or letter grading.

Course statistics

Predicted GPA
3.78
n = 2,520 · 10 terms · ± 0.011
A range
86%
of letter grades
Taken P/NP
2%
95% of those passed
D / F / W
1.6%
incl. withdrawals

Sections in Fall 2026

Not offered in Fall 2026.

Enrollment history

Final enrollment per term, averaged across that term's sections. Four years deep, summer excluded. Per-section live curves are on each section page.

  • 34221F
  • 25222S
  • 30322F
  • 29523S
  • 32923F
  • 31424S
  • 32024F
  • 29525S
Enrolment by term: 21F 342, 22S 252, 22F 303, 23S 295, 23F 329, 24S 314, 24F 320, 25S 295
Peak 342 Most recent 295 in 25S 8 terms on record

Grade distribution

  • A+ 1,318 · 51.3%
  • A 659 · 25.6%
  • A- 199 · 7.7%
  • B+ 110 · 4.3%
  • B 75 · 2.9%
  • B- 49 · 1.9%
  • C+ 27 · 1.1%
  • C 25 · 1.0%
  • C- 18 · 0.7%
  • D+ 3 · 0.1%
  • D 9 · 0.4%
  • D- 1 · 0.0%
  • F 27 · 1.1%
  • P 40 · 1.6%
  • NP 2 · 0.1%
  • I 8 · 0.3%
  • DR 1 · 0.0%

Grey bars are non-letter outcomes — P/NP, S/U, incompletes. They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.

By instructor

Instructor Predicted Raw n Terms A range
ALIM, H SAMY 3.87 3.87 1,593 5 91%
MENDOZA-DENTON, NORMA 3.81 3.81 531 2 91%
CARTMILL, ERICA A 3.25 3.23 279 1 51%
BIGHAM, ABIGAIL WINSLOW 3.77 3.77 117 2 89%

“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department — so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.

By term