Dear Mr Hall, I am writing to you in the hope that the recent decision of AQA to cancel anthropology as an optional A level subject might be reconsidered. Anthropology is not only a fundamental intellectual discipline, but the unique perspectives on human diversity offered by the subject can serve as an antidote to the ignorance, prejudices and dangerous ethnic and religious hatred which seem to be spreading across Europe right now. Anthropology teaches that every human life has a value, but not that all values are equal. In Norway, where I live, a subject called ‘Sociology and social anthropology’ has been optional in the equivalent to the lower sixth form for many years. It is popular and attracts between 7,000 and 10,000 students a year (which is substantial in a country of 5m inhabitants). As the co-author of several of the textbooks, including the most widely used current one, I know the subject well and should emphasise that the anthropological component, which amounts to roughly 50% of the curriculum, is crucial. Unlike sociology, anthropology speaks of ‘our creative diversity’ as a species, dealing with both that which unites us as a species and the forms of diversity witnessed in cultural variation globally. Through knowledge of other cultures and societies, students eventually come to understand themselves and their own society in a new way. If Socrates' maxim ‘Know thyself’ is still valid, anthropology is one of the most effective methods for its realisation. Incidentally, British anthropologists have, from Victorian times up to the present, been absolutely crucial in establishing and developing anthropology as a global, comparative subject. Like philosophy, anthropology is a fundamental way of knowing the world and humanity. Most of the students who learn anthropology in secondary schools around Norway never study the subject at university, but they carry with them, for the rest of their lives, an outlook, some knowledge and a way of understanding which they would otherwise have missed. I realise that student numbers have been disappointingly low. However, it takes time to establish a new school subject, and four years is not enough. I therefore ask, respectfully, that the decision to remove anthropology from school curricula be given a thorough re-examination. Thank you for your time. Yours sincerely, Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo