Part of the reason I find this debate difficult is that, yet again, we are
comparing US apples and global oranges. The structure of US professional
training stresses successive degrees, lots of moving around between jobs and
highly fractionated levels of achievement / status. Other academic /
professional systems are less rigid and multi-tiered which makes it harder
to plot advancement in some ranking system or equivalence. This is
certainly true of Australia, and presumably of its British predecessors.
I looked for sites comparing Australian BA / Masters / PhD levels to those
in the US. One interesting conclusion [at least in psychology where the
direct comparison was made] was:
"There is no support for the notion that an American professional Masters
Degree in psychology is equivalent to an Australian professional Masters
Degree in Psychology. On the contrary, an American Masters Degree appears to
be roughly equivalent to an Australian Bachelor Pass Degree with a double
major in psychology and one year of supervised experience..."
[ref: http://www.neurognostics.com.au/AcademicEquivs/OzziePsychoCringe.htm]
The discrepancies between US and GB / Aust are present from the expected
level of achievement at the end of high school and only increase from there,
right up to PhD. Luckily Martin Carver, BA, would count as a US MA and is
therefore probably entitled to be an archaeologist by the merest whisker.
Two issues arise. The first is whether it is reasonable to coopt the
generic term 'archaeologist' [someone with a BA degree seems to be the
HISTARCH consensus] for a higher level of qualification [only someone with a
US MA], rather than to find a more appropriate word. The second [subject of
much argument here as well] is whether someone with a BA does have
sufficient training to do what is expected of someone calling themselves an
archaeologist, and should they even be expected to? Can you be a bit
archaeologist, like being a bit pregnant? Ultimately both questions are
related to a reasonable expectation - that someone with a specific degree
should have a necessary range of skills - and whether this can be met in
practice.
Denis Gojak, BA [Hons]
Diploma of Urban Studies - discontinued, all too hard
PhD - discontinued, all too hard
----- Original Message -----
From: "geoff carver" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 7:49 PM
Subject: Re: definition of an 'archaeologist' ?
?
"Denis Gojak" <[log in to unmask]> schrieb:
> No they don't, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "geoff carver" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 1:24 AM
> Subject: Re: definition of an 'archaeologist' ?
>
>
> i guess martin carver, present editor of antiquity & long-time professor
of
> archaeology in england, with his BA, isn't an archaeologist, then...
> & i guess the peer-reviewed stuff i did (including the articles i was
> commissioned to write) before i got conned into going back to "skool"
> doesn't count, either...?
>
> "John Dendy" <[log in to unmask]> schrieb:
> > My experience has been that you're not an "Archeologist" without the MA.
>
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