Final answer:
Margaret Mead, the cultural anthropologist, authored 'Coming of Age in Samoa', exploring child-rearing and sexual socialization in Samoan culture as opposed to Euro-American norms.
Step-by-step explanation:
The anthropologist who believed that to understand a culture one must examine the patterns of child-rearing within that society, and who authored the book Coming of Age in Samoa is Margaret Mead. In her seminal 1928 work, Margaret Mead explored the sexual life stages and child-rearing practices in Samoan culture, contrasting them with those of Euro-American societies. She concluded that the Samoan way of life permitted a more open and liberal approach to sexuality, thus influencing their adolescent experiences.
Mead's findings suggested that unlike the stiff and repressed attitudes towards sex in the United States, Samoan culture allowed both boys and girls to learn about and explore their sexuality freely during adolescence, which she described as a "golden era of freedom and adventure." This groundbreaking research by Mead has contributed significantly to the field of cultural anthropology, particularly in the aspects that concern psychological development and the socialization processes of different cultures.