After participating in a traditional college graduation ceremony, I appreciate the importance of ritual in a way I do not think I did before. Pomp and circumstance has sometimes seemed frivolous ...

There are more than three centuries of precedents for graduation rituals — for its dress, for its speeches, and for its disturbances. If commencement is ripe for contestation (the backs turned ...

As an anthropologist who studies the human need for ritual, I have spent two decades ... Not everyone cares about a graduation ceremony. Indeed, some graduates choose not to attend theirs.

In his considered play for young audiences aged 10 and up, Shaun Dunne explores the significance of the ritual of school graduation; the way a formal ceremony provides an emotional structure to ...