Based on the presupposition that anthropology and education have man as a common basis of reflection, this text proposes a discussion on the possible differences between the approaches of these fields of knowledge, considering the choice of the theoretical perspective which underlies this investigation as a decisive aspect of the question. This discussion starts with a criticism of the post-modernist discourse which adheres to relativism - historically associated to the public success of anthropology in the study of diversity - and spreads all over the human sciences in a movement now conventionally called "crisis of paradigms". It is argued that, without giving up the characteristics which guides anthropologist's work, that is, the deep knowledge of particular objects, it is not possible to develop a scientific commitment to insert them in a wider context of understanding, within a perspective which can echo among other social researchers. Joining universal values to cultural specificity, considering them as dimensions of the same reality, besides being a theoretical demand, is a practical imposition, for democracy is being challenged by a global movement of poverty, social exclusion, and the emergence of absolute particularities.