| The shorthand version of what I plan to do revolves around Carol
Gilligan's concept of "voice" -- a sense of self-confidence
and assuredness. Gilligan posits that early in development this sense
of voice is present in young girls and it unfortunately vanishes as girls
become more feminized and sensitive to the social pressures of being female
(developmentally around the age of 10). One of the main problems with
this is that 'voice' is notoriously difficult to quantify (Harter, Waters,
Whitesell & Kastelic, 1998). To assist, I plan on tying this into
a similar phenomenon (both in time and scope): that of girls’ interest
in the sciences which also diminishes at the same level at about the same
point in time.
Further, I want to tie this concept of voice into college women and their
choices for post-graduate education. In many ways, the majority of the
incoming students who arrive on campus seem to have regained their "voice"
over time (they are back to being self confident and assured when they
arrive here). Over the four years of college, a number of these women
will change or give up on their original plans for post-graduate education.
This process is remarkably similar to what Gilligan describes at the earlier
stage of development - I see this as an ''echo" of that original
process and want to explore this further. Through a series of interviews
and questionnaires, I want to plot out these students' plans and aspirations
and follow the changes that occur to these plans during their time in
college. More importantly, I want to measure the sincerity in these plans,
gain some objective measures of the real feasibility of these plans, and
assess what it is in the college culture or their lives which cause them
to shift their focus from their original intentions.
I. Girls in the classroom
Educators and psychologists have often been forced to deal with a basic
conundrum regarding females and the sciences: Despite all the evidence
that females seem to excel in the school environment from the earliest
grade levels; why is there such inconsistency between the genders when
it comes to the sciences?
There is a substantial literature documenting that females show high levels
of competence, and thrive in the classroom environment despite the presence
of many factors that could diminish their chances of success (e.g. discrimination,
differences in attention given by teachers, etc.). For example, girls
tend to achieve higher grades and have higher aspirations than boys from
the first grade of elementary school to the last grade of high school
(AAUW, 1992). Girls are also less likely to have documented learning disorders,
are less likely to drop out of school, and are more likely to attend college
(National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES, 1998). The one exception
to this pattern of girls’ higher academic performance is in the
area of math and science achievement where males have greater levels of
achievement in adolescence and beyond. In college, females form only a
small percentage of the students majoring in math-based subjects and the
physical sciences (Dey & Hurtado, 1999), and have lower expectations
for themselves (Hafner, 1985).
Over the last decade, there have been many attempts to deal with long-lasting
and emerging inequalities within the classroom environment. Two of the
most comprehensive of these studies, the National Research Council’s
(NRC’s) Committee on Science and Mathematics Teacher Preparation
Report (NRC, 1998) and the American Association of University Women’s
report How Schools Shortchange Girls (AAUW, 1992) reached many of the
same basic conclusions. Both reports agree that one area that requires
substantial commitment from all educators and communities is the teaching
and retaining of women in the areas of math and sciences.
II. Girls in the sciences.
There is evidence that gender differences in math and sciences are decreasing
somewhat, but these studies only consider enrollment in classes and ignore
the fact the these “signs of improvement” may be nothing more
than an artifact of new requirements by school boards or state legislatures;
the numbers are evened out by new requirements not by active choices by
the students (NCES, 1998). Orenstein (1994, p.94) goes so far as to describe
the common reformation by many school systems as one of “add women
and stir.” In an attempt to reverse issues such as the gender disparity
in classes, school systems have taken steps to increase the number of
required courses in the life and physical sciences throughout high school.
They can rightfully point to the new gender parity and evidence that the
girls in these classes perform just as well as the males (Voyer, 1996).
This strategy however still has not had any major impact on females as
they enter into college in these fields.
The American Association of University Women report How Schools Shortchange
Girl (AAUW, 1992), was one of the first reports to identify the trends
in math achievement, but argue that the gender gap in the sciences (even
for those who are highly competent in math or science ability) continued
to persist and, was in fact increasing. The AAUW report concludes that
females are much less likely to seek out careers in the sciences or technology
than their male counterparts. Fennema and Sherman (1999) suggest that
females see math and science as “something men do” and this
may precipitate a drop in their confidence in their own ability during
the middle school years. The most unusual finding in this research is
that this drop in confidence occurs prior to any documented drops in achievement.
In other words, there is little to suggest that girls lose confidence
in their abilities in response to achievement failures; rather their achievement
may drop because they’ve lost confidence in themselves in other
ways.
III. Voice
Carol Gilligan (1992, 1993; Brown & Gilligan, 1992) has attempted
to document the developmental changes (moral, cognitive, personality,
self-esteem) in girls through the period of adolescence. Based on her
in-depth interviews, Gilligan claims that young girls (prior to the age
of 11) are generally strong and confident of their own thoughts and opinions
(using her terminology, they have a level of “voice”). Not
only is there a respectably strong level of self-confidence (barring of
course any negative external factors such as abuse), but also they are
true to themselves and willing to call others to task for what they see
as “giving in” to stereotypical or “truth-less”
behaviors. This clarity in thought and the tendency to express their opinions
diminishes as they approach puberty. Gilligan (1992) claims that during
the normal transition of adolescence, girls begin to identify with the
established cultural role of the “good woman” quickly perceiving
that the desirable stereotype in our culture (as demonstrated by role
models such as their mothers) is being nice, polite to others, unassuming
and quiet. Given that this stereotype conflicts with self-expression and
the “voice” that they have, they receive the message that
in the adult world, women keep quiet and begin to feel that their opinion
is neither valued nor sought.
A consequence of being aware of this inconsistency in their emerging self
and the norms of society begin to cause the young girl to “lose
her voice” and becomes hindered by the image of the “perfect
girl” (Gilligan, 1993). Given that the risk of expression to the
adolescent girl is at best, tension or conflict and at worst, anger or
abandonment, many choose to abandon their “self”. This abandonment
of self leads them to constantly interrupt themselves to inject statements
like “I don’t know” as an attempt to cover up what they
really do know. This loss of voice and the constant devaluing of their
ideas and thoughts can easily lead into the decreases in self-esteem seen
during the middle-school years (Harter & Rosenberg, 1990; Orenstein,
1994). These effects of lowered worth and self-esteem are further reinforced
in the classroom by differential treatments of males and females. Teachers
ask more questions of males, give more feedback (praise, criticism, and
correction), and give more specific and valuable comments to boys. By
the time students reach college, men are twice as likely to initiate comments
as women (Bailey, 1993; Sadker & Sadker, 1986; Wingate, 1986). To
add insult to injury, girls are also at a loss in the science labs: boys
tend to dominate the use of equipment in the labs (Rennie & Parker,
1987) and girls are more likely to be exposed to subtle forms of sexism
such as academic dependence and nonrigorous instruction (Lee, Marks, &
Boyd, 1994). Girls are constantly receiving the message “you tried”
whereas boys receive the message “try harder” (Horgan, 1995).
As influential as Gilligan's work has been, one criticism that has repeatedly
been leveled is that this concept of "voice," while interesting
and potentially important, is also notoriously difficult to quantify.
Harter and her colleagues (1998) have spearheaded some of the most rigorous
investigations into the quantification of voice and have yet to yield
results consistent with the findings of Gilligan. So, even though a good
number of developmental psychologists buy into the idea of "voice"
we have yet to find a mechanism through which we can study it. It is my
contention that voice can possibly be measured through an analogue process
of interest in the sciences. Further, this same (or similar) phenomenon
seems to be present when we examine the changing expectations of women
as they go to college.
IV. Girls in college
In a study of college women’s perceptions, Ridgwell (2002) investigated
factors either in college or secondary schools that influenced their decision
to continue into a post-graduate career. She indicates that there are
a large number of women at all levels of college who cannot see themselves
as potential graduate students, even in spite of strong GPA’s. Of
those who have always envisioned continuing on into higher education or
who came to envision this possibility in college, two factors seemed to
emerge. The first factor was the presence of a strong mentor (this was
particularly true in the sciences); and the second factor was exposure
to the tools and practice of the discipline.
While mentoring has long been seen as an important factor in one’s
investment in education, Ridgwell’s work suggests that, for girls,
the presence of a strong male role model may be more important than a
female role model. While an interesting finding, it is still possible
that Ridgwell confounded gender and age of role models in her studies.
The majority of the male role models at the institutions she examined
were also individuals who are relatively younger than the female role
models, many having just finished graduate school in the previous 5-6
years. Nonetheless, it is an interesting finding.
The exposure to the tools of the sciences is closely tied into what Newmann
(1992) terms engagement. Engagement refers to the quality of being psychologically
committed to learning and being able to envision yourself succeeding in
similar situations. It is likely that one aspect of losing their “voice”
is that girls are no longer able to envision themselves in those domains
that are viewed as more male-dominated. Interventions prior to this loss
of voice as well as the establishment of solid and sustained familiarity
with the mechanics of the laboratory procedures and principles combined
with reinforcement from teacher/mentors might enable girls to persist
in these domains.
V. Research Plan
This particular research project involves questions that we all care about;
what makes someone (in this case females) more committed to themselves
and their education? While the majority of my activities during my sabbatical
on this project seem to be more planning and piloting, these are extraordinarily
important steps given the fact that once started, these projects will
take 4 to 10 years to complete. The investment in the planning and piloting
(and training a good set of students in the very messy art of interviewing)
of this project will lead to very useful data being made available to
educators.
The research itself will involve 4 major components:
∑ First, a series of semi-structured interviews asking questions
about students' educational plans and aspirations, decision-making, experiences
of importance, and their view of graduate school and the sciences. These
interviews will last approximately 30-45 minutes and each participant
will take part in 2 or 3 interviews per year. I will likely test a cross-sectional
sample of students next year and try to draw some conclusions that I will
build into the formalized interviews for the following year.
∑ Second, a series of general opinion questionnaires about their
educational beliefs and a few standardized tests that can be self-administered
will be given. These will be given out at the end of the first interview
session and participants will have a week to return them. Questions will
be tailored to issues we might include in future interviews as well as
any demographic information we might consider important.
∑ Third, a collection of quantifiable data on the participants.
One of the greatest weaknesses of much of the research in this area is
that there is little attempt to follow through and find out information
on the actual participants. As an example, imagine that during an interview
with a college student, she states that she has decided not to go on for
a graduate education in the interview. Ridgwell (2002) would classify
this person as a "dropper" -- someone who had plans and then
decided against them. For me, it would be important to know if instead
of being a "dropper" she is actually a "dropped on her
head" -- someone who initially believes that she'll be going on into
graduate school, but her 1.2 GPA doesn't allow for it (I know…not
the classiest of titles, but I'm sure my meaning is clear). At both age
ranges it is important to get an anchor in reality if these findings are
going to have any meaning.
∑ Finally, a collection of data on the institution. A final thing
that is necessary to tie all of the information together is a sense of
the overall institution. Some of Ridgwell's (2002) conclusions are not
as mysterious as she claims if she had had more information about the
institution. Sweet Briar College was one of the colleges where testing
was done on this project, and a number of her phenomena take on a new
light if an individual has a decent level of knowledge about the testing
environment. While there is always a risk that having this knowledge can
predispose you to think in specific ways, it also allows for you to ask
better questions; a point which is commonly lost in this research area.
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