Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

Carol Gilligan 89
and studying psychology, she did not feel that same comfort. Something was amiss. At Harvard,
the focus of study was on male psychologists researching mainly male subjects in the longestablished
and unquestioned patriarchal practice. Gilligan could not yet identify the discord;
however, she felt there was a discrepancy in the way professors spoke. These discussions lacked
the intricacy and the aliveness of the authentic human experience that she learned through her
study of Euripides, Shakespeare, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf.
During the sixties and early seventies, Gilligan was a social activist involved in issues of moral
importance. As a lecturer at the University of Chicago, she refused to present grades because
they were being used as basis for the Vietnam draft. Gilligan also took part in sit-ins and became
involved in the civil rights movement, the antinuclear movement, and the women’s strike for
peace. In addition, she went knocking on doors in order to get people to register to vote.
Initially Gilligan had no plans of entering the field of psychology. As the mother of three small
sons and a member of a modern dance group, she taught part-time to make money in order to
have some help in the house. At this time, she had the opportunity to teach with Erik Erikson
at Harvard in his course on the human life cycle. She then taught with Lawrence Kohlberg
in his course on moral and political choice (Wylie and Simon, 2003). Gilligan was drawn to
Erikson and Kohlberg, as they had similar interests concerning the connection of psychology
and political choice and philosophy and literature. Furthermore, like Gilligan, both men were
dedicated to the civil rights and antiwar movements. Gilligan worked closely with Kohlberg and
even coauthored the article “The Adolescent as a Philosopher: The Discovery of the Self in a
Postconventional World” (1971) with him. However, during this time, Gilligan began to feel
uneasy using Kohlberg’s criteria to judge moral development because of the way women were
categorized. Under Kohlberg’s model, the average female scores were a full stage lower than the
male average scores, implying that women were less morally developed than men. Concurrently,
while teaching Kohlberg’s course, Gilligan also became fascinated in how people respond to
real-life situations of conflict and choice. She was interested in people’s real-life moral struggles
where people had the power to choose and have to live with the consequences of their decisions.
It was the height of the Vietnam War, and male students were faced with the draft. Gilligan
wanted to know how these young men would act when they had to make a choice about serving
in a war that many believed was neither justifiable nor moral; hence, she began a study related
to their choices. However, in 1973, President Nixon ended the draft, and that ended Gilligan’s
study. During this time, the Supreme Court had ruled that state antiabortion legislation was not
legal in the case of Roe v. Wade. Realizing that Roe v. Wade would give “women the decisive
voice in a real moment of choice with real consequences for their personal lives and for society”
(Goldberg, 2000, p. 702), Gilligan shifted her study to women making this moral decision.
While sitting in her kitchen reviewing the transcripts of pregnant women considering abortion,
Gilligan made a dramatic discovery. She recognized the emergence of a different pattern. There
were differences between the public abortion debates over right to life or right to choice and
the women’s unease about acting responsibly in relationships because for many women their
problems concerning abortion involved issues relating to relationships. For example, Gilligan
noted that the women felt apprehensive, “If I bring my voice into my relationships, will I become
a bad, selfish woman, and will I end my relationships” (Goldberg, 2000, p. 702)? Listening
to these women, Gilligan heard a perception of self that differed from the theories of Freud,
Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg. Moreover, she became conscious that the theories used to judge
emotional health and typical experiences were embedded almost exclusively in studies of white
male behavior. Subsequently, these theories were then applied to women. Gilligan shared this
discovery with her friend Dora. Dora found this to be intriguing and suggested that Gilligan
write about it (Wylie and Simon, 2003). Consequently, Gilligan wrote an essay published in
the Harvard Educational Review in 1977 titled “In a Different Voice: Women’s Conceptions of