Nora Lynom
INTRO TO EDUCATION
EDF 2005
Educator Essay
CAROL GILLIGAN (1936- PRESENT)
Carol Gilligan is credited for her research on
adolescence, moral development, and women’s development and conflict resolution.
As a feminist, scholar, professor and author, she has helped to form a new direction for women.
Carol
Gilligan is a well-known psychologist and writer. Carol Gilligan was born on
November 28, 1936, in New York City. Having majored in literature, she graduates
from Swarthmore College in 1958.
She
has done advanced work at Radcliffe University receiving a Masters in clinical psychology in 1960. She earned her Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University in 1964.
Gilligan started teaching at Harvard in 1967
with renowned psychologist Erik Erikson. In 1970, she was a research assistant
for Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg is known for his research on moral development
and his stage theory of moral development, justice and rights.
Gilligan’s
primary focus came to moral development in girls. Gilligan would go on to criticize
Kohlberg’s work. Kohlberg only studied privileged, white men and boys. She felt that was a problem because it caused a biased opinion against women.
Secondly,
in his stage theory of moral development, was what he considered to be the higher stage and eclipsed the women’s point
of view in terms of its caring effect on human relationships, was the male view of individual rights and rules which was then
considered the higher stage than women’s point of development (Gilligan, C 1982).
Gilligan helped to form a new psychology for
women by listening to them and rethinking the meaning of self and selfishness.
She
asked four questions about women voices: who is speaking, in what body, telling
what story, and in what cultural framework is the story presented?
In
her most famous book titled, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory
and Women’s Development. Gilligan asserted that women have
differing moral and psychological tendencies than men, which acted as a precursor to the differing speeds/rates and methods
by which each developed.
Gilligan
states that men think in terms of rules and justice and women are more inclined to think in terms of caring and relationships.
Gilligan
asserts that women must learn to tend to their own interests and to the interests of others.
She thinks that women must learn to tend to their own interests and to the interests of others. She thinks that women hesitate to judge because they see the complexities of relationships.
She
is a considered to be a pioneer of gender studies and particularly in psychological and moral development of girls.
Gilligan
appointment to Harvard University’s first position in gender studies in 1997 in the Graduate School of Education was
the first of it’s kind in the history of this school. Another of her works
is in developing the Listening Guide Method.
This
is a voice centered, relational approach to understanding the human world. The
method studies voice and resonance. In developing this approach, Gilligan has
collaborated with voice teachers who are experience in working in theatre.
This
method has literary, clinical and feminist ways of listening to people as they describe a relationship that they have experienced.
Gilligan
has received numerous awards, in 1992 was given the Grawemeyer Award in Education. This
award is given in achievements in music and education. In 1997, she received
the Heinz Award for knowledge of the Human Condition and for her challenges to in the field of human development and what
it means to be a human.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge,
Ma: Harvard University Press.
- Sommers. C.H. (2001). The war against boys: How misguided feminism is harming our young men. New York: Simon and Schuster.
- Harvard School of Education: Faculty Profile. (2001)
- The Atlantic Online (2000)
