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book synopsis: Women's Ways of Knowing



Hi, physics colleague,
Below is part 1 of a 3-part synopsis of a book which can help us understand
the thought processes of our women physics students. I read this book
because a male physics professor said it had a profound effect on his
teaching. We have much room for improving the way we teach physics and all
other subjects, as you may learn by reading this.

I specifically included information in the book about women's attitudes
toward science. See where your women students are, among these stages of
development.

I am encouraged, because I can see now that the modeling method of physics
instruction reaches down to where young women are and assists them in
developing intellectually much faster and more effectively than would
otherwise happen. And not only women, but also young men.
Cheers,
Jane Jackson
---------------------------------------------

Synopsis: WOMEN'S WAYS OF KNOWING
by Jane Jackson (fall 1997)

I found WOMEN'S WAYS OF KNOWING (Basic Books, 1986) to be excellent. It's
subtitled "The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind". The authors, four
professors of psychology at colleges in the Northeast, interviewed 135
women from teenage to elderly: 90 students at six colleges (including a
community college), and 45 women of all ages being helped in 3 social
service agencies. They did multiple interviews of these 135 women over 5
years. What they arrived at is a 4 -stage intellectual developmental scheme
which augments the work of Perry. (I think that Perry's scheme is taught
to every pre-service teacher. Unfortunately, college professors don't
generally learn any developmental psychology. I am one of them who
didn't.)

The problem with Perry's developmental theory is that Perry restricted his
interviews to male Harvard students. Thus he overlooked women and people
of all other ages and socio-economic backgrounds. Thus his theory has
serious gaps!

The authors are Mary Belenky, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill
Tarule. All are mature women who, in the acknowledgments section, thanked
their husbands for their feedback on the book. Their preface starts: "In
this book we describe the ways of knowing that women have cultivated and
learned to value, ways we have come to believe are powerful but have been
neglected and denigrated by the dominant intellectual ethos of our time.
We also describe the multitude of obstacles women must overcome in
developing the power of thier minds."

The authors discover 5 types of knowing: the first is pathological, and the
others are 4 stages of normal intellectual development.
1) (Pathological): SILENCE, disconnection, voiceless, powerless, feeling
deaf and dumb. All the women in this category grew up in isolation, not
having friends. For all of them, one of their parents was violent and the
other was silent and compliant, often victimized. They feel passive,
reactive, and dependent, and they see authorities as being all-powerful, if
not overpowering. They see blind obedience to those in authority as being
essential to survival. They don't know who they are; they can't describe
themselves. They don't see themselves as learners; they have failed at
school.

2) 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. "She does not
transform the material; she files it 'as is'. She willingly reproduces the
material on demand, as on an exam, but she feels betrayed if the teacher
asks her to 'apply' it or to produce materials on her own." "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' " Two factors can account for this, they speculate.
First, these women encountered few authorities who were women, and they
spoke of some male authorities negatively: "The women we interviewed spoke,
for instance, of science professors who communicated their beliefs that
women were incapable of making science. They spoke, all too often, of
authorities who wielded their power to extract sexual favors." The second
factor is "women's rootedness in a sense of connection" as opposed to men's
emphasis on separation and autonomy. "Men, valuing distance and autonomy,
are more exclusionary. To them, 'we' clearly means 'not they'. Women
valuing connection and intimacy are much more likely to be inclusionary,
finding 'they' and 'we' to be intertwined and interdependent."

(to be continued)

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.