He then went to Northwestern University, where he was a student of Melville Herskovits, basing his dissertation on field research among the Pokot of Kenya.
His mentor, Melville Herskovits, had also focused on East African pastoral peoples, and in this, as well as in Schneider's continued interest in morality and aesthetics, the pupil followed the teacher.
His focus on economic anthropology is first evident in his dissertation, on the ways in which cattle were used by a pastoral people in East Africa.
Schneider was compelled to argue forcefully against the prevailing substantivist perspective, which held that optimizing behavior was characteristic only of societies with markets.
He served on the executive committee of the Human Relations Area Files between 1981 and 1984, at a time when the organization began moving its data into electronic format.