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Herb Gottlieb asked on Dec. 23:Hi Jane and others. William Burroughs claims - in passing (in the Naked
"Your treatise about the intellectual development of women is
very interesting but does each statement refer to ALL women,
90 percent of women, or 68 percent of women ..... or ????"
Herb, in part 3 of my synopsis of WOMEN'S WAYS OF KNOWING (posted on
Dec.
23), each statement in quotations is the authors' statement about the
women
in stage 3 (procedural knowers) of the 4 stages of intellectual
development
that they found. The authors interviewed 135 women over 5 years and
watched them move from one stage to the next. Sadly, from my reading,
it
looks as though about half of the 135 women never got to stage 3.
The women who were in stages 1 and 2 (see below) "DID NOT place "an
emphasis on procedures, skills, and techniques" and DID NOT "conceive
knowledge as a process"! Sadly, over half of the 135 women were at
stages
1 and 2. Perry (at Harvard) places the shift from stage 1 to stage 2
at
early adolescence. Since all of the women in this study were from
ages 16
to 60, all of them should have started out at least at stage 3,
procedural
knowers, if their intellectual development hadn't been hampered.
The question is, HOW CAN WE PHYSICS TEACHERS ASSIST IN THE
INTELLECTUAL
DEVELOPMENT OF OUR STUDENTS (both female and male), USING THE INSIGHTS
OF
THIS STUDY?
-------------------------------
Below is a brief review of stages 1 and 2 of women's intellectual
development, emphasizing their attitudes toward science. (Quotes are
the
authors' statements.)
STAGE 1: RECEIVED KNOWLEDGE: LISTENING TO THE VOICES OF OTHERS
(dualism).
Most of these women were just beginning college or were receiving help
in
social service agencies. They learn by listening (as opposed to the
voiceless women, who are unaware of the power of words for
transmitting
knowledge). Dualistic: everything is black or white; thus they shun
the
qualitative and welcome the quantitative. Truth comes from others, and
authorities receive knowledge from higher authorities (rather than
constructing it themselves). These women have no opinions and thus
are
confused when asked to do original work. Literal; can't deal with
ambiguity: if two authorities disagree, they go with the higher
authority.
Must have predictibility: "In deciding whether to take a course,
[they]
want to know how many tests and papers there will be and how long the
papers. How many pages of how many books will they have to read?
Exactly
how will their grade be computed?"
Thus they may be attracted to math and science. One
interviewee at
this stage said, "There are absolutes in math and sciences. You feel
that
you can accomplish something by - by getting something down pat. Work
in
other courses seems to accomplish nothing, just seems so worthless. It
doesn't really matter whether you are right or wrong, 'cause there
really
isn't a right or wrong. You can't say. It's all guesswork."
"These women either "get" an idea right away or they do not
get it
at all. They don't really try to UNDERSTAND the idea. They have no
notion,
really, of understanding as a process taking place over time and
demanding
the exercise of reason." Their conception of learning is storing a
copy
of the material, first in their notes and then in their head. "These
women
feel confident about their ability to absorb and to store the truths
received from others....They may be quite successful in schools that
do not
demand a reflective, relativistic stance."
This stage is similar to Perry's first stage in Harvard men.
"Perry's dualist position describes men who hold an outlook that is
similar
to the received knowledge position we found in women's data. DUALISM,
the
simplest way of knowing that Perry observed, was held only briefly, if
at
all, among members of his elite college sample. Perry's men
particularly
dichotomize "the familiar world of Authority - Right - WE as against
the
alien world of Illegitimate - Wrong - OTHERS."
However, the authors found one significant difference: "[the
women]
did not align themselves with authorities to the extent Perry
described
occurring among men. This world of 'Authority - right - we' was quite
alien to many women. The women in our sample seemed to say 'Authority
-
right - they' "
STAGE 2: SUBJECTIVISM (multiplicity).
" For many of the women,the move away from silence and an
externally oriented perspective on knowledge and truth eventuates in a
new
conception of truth as personal, private, and subjectively known or
intuited.... subjectivism is dualistic in the sense that there is
still the
conviction that there are right answers; the fountain of truth simply
has
shifted locale. Truth now resides within the person and can negate
answers
that the outside world supplies." They live by their gut, their
instincts;
they are their own authority. Firsthand experience is a valuable
source of
knowledge.
Almost half of the 135 women that the authors interviewed were
predominantly subjectivist in their thinking. They were of all ages
and
backgrounds. "We encountered women from 16 to 60 for whom the
discovery of
subjective truth was the most recent and personally liberating event
of
their lives... thus women themselves attached the notion of growth or
developmental progression to the shift from silence or conformity to
external definitions of truth into subjectivism."
The authors find two types of subjectivism. One is similar to
Perry's MULTIPLISTS; and they call this group of young advantaged
women
"hidden multiplists".
The authors discuss Perry's second stage, the MULTIPLISTS:
"Unlike
dualists, Perry's multiplists no longer mimic the teachers' opinion or
memorize verbatim the words of the textbook; now they often insist
that
their opinion is as good as the teacher's. By the time he reaches
college
age, the average advantaged child, like Perry's Harvard men, has
learned
that everybody is different, everybody has opinions, and the business
of
the classroom is to express loudly what you believe and feel."
The women 'hidden multiplists' have backgrounds and values
similar
to privileged Harvard men. But "unlike the advantaged adolescent
male, who
has had years of practice in exploring and testing social limits,the
adolescent female from a similar background has frequently been
rewarded
for her quiet predictability, her competent though perhaps
unimaginative
work, and her obedience and conformity.
The result is HIDDEN multiplicity: "Unlike the male student,
who
takes up the banner of multiplicity with vigor, the young woman
usually
approaches multiplicity much more cautiously.
The form that multiplicity (subjectivism) takes in these
women,
then, "is not at all the masculine assertion that 'I have a RIGHT to
my
opinion'; rather, it is the modest, inoffensive statement, 'It's JUST
MY
OPINION'. Their intent is to communicate to others the limits, not
the
power, of their own opinions, perhaps because they want to preserve
their
attachments to others, not dislodge them."
Perry at Harvard "locates the shift from dualism into
multiplicity/subjectivism as occurring in early adolescence."
The criterion for truth they most often refer to is 'satisfaction' or
'what feels comfortable to me' They do not mention that rational
procedures
play a part in the search for truth."
"In situations in which the inner voice is silent and personal
experience is lacking, subjective knowers adopt a cafeteria approach
to
knowledge, an attitude of 'let's try a little bit of everything until
something comes up that works for me'.There are no thought out
procedures
in the search for lurking truths. The process is magical and
mysterious:
'It's like the truth hits you dead in the face, and it knocks you out.
When
you come to, that is it.'"
"The passionate rejection of science and scientists, while not
true
of all subjective knowers, was very common. Whereas silent and
authority-oriented women often perceived scientists as ultimate
authority
and looked to science for final answers, after the onset of subjective
knowing women often became alienated from things scientific. In many
of
our interviews with women currently in school, the shift into
subjectivism
was accompanied by a shift in academic major from science to the arts
or
humanities."
Jane Jackson, Prof. of Physics, Scottsdale Comm.College (on leave)
Box 871504, Dept.of Physics, ASU, Tempe, AZ 85287.
602-965-8438/fax:965-7331. http://modeling.la.asu.edu/modeling.html
Genius must transform the world, that the world may produce more
genius.