In this chapter I aim to provide a review and critique of Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice and Mind (Belenky et al., 1986). 1 The ideas that this book have given rise to are especially relevant to this thesis. I first read this book within a few years of its initial publication. Its ideas had resonance for me and gave me the tools to describe my own learning history. Furthermore, I believe it shaped my emergent 'living theory' of what developmental education required, in turn, influencing the design of the MAPOD, in respect of an approach to learning based on a community of learners. During my inquiry, I have read this book many times, developing with each reading a deeper understanding of the text, helping me clarify over time how I could improve my practice. I begin with an introduction and overview of the study that forms the basis of this book, and then develop a more fulsome account of the five epistemological perspectives that shape the order of presentation of this book. In doing so, I aim to help the reader who may be unfamiliar with this work to gain an appreciation and understanding of how it has influenced my research. I develop my account by explaining how these perspectives resonated for me, and by providing a glimpse of how they helped me understand and know myself better as a learner. In addition, I indicate where they have influenced my thinking and living theory as a professional educator. By placing myself as knower within the text, I hope to show how the reading of this book and its subsequent review and critique was for me, not an activity of detached intellectual curiosity, used 1 Hereinafter in this chapter referred to as WWK. 103 to produce a traditional literature review, but rather a process of engagement with ideas in which I as a knower was intimately connected and attached to that which was also known to and communicated by others. The reading of this book began a relationship with those ideas that the authors brought into the public domain, leading to a personal and organisational learning trajectory of transformation. Finally, I will address issues of critique, drawing out in particular some of the key criticisms brought to light in the work of Goldberger et al. (1996).

The Listening Partners intervention is described and analyzed as a synthesis of feminism and community psychology, within a developmental framework. Working from an empowerment perspective, this social action, peer group intervention supported a community of poor, rural, isolated, young, White mothers to gain a greater voice, claim the powers of their minds, and collaborate in developmental leadership--creating settings that promote their own development and that of their families, peers, and communities. High quality dialogue, individual and group narrative, and collaborative problem-solving were emphasized, in a feminist context affirming diversity, inclusiveness, strengths, social-contextual analyses, and social constructivist perspectives. The power of enacting a synergy of feminism and community psychology is highlighted.

Discrepancies between hypothetical judgments and reasoning about an actual choice can predict the clinical outcome of crisis and the occurrence of developmental change.

We present a model of education, called “connected education,” designed to be appropriate for women, and derived from interviews with 135 women, varying widely in age, social and ethnic background, and educational institution. We explore four features of the model: (a) explicit confirmation for modes of thinking and kinds of knowledge that women value; (b) opportunities to explore the particularities of firsthand experience, before moving to conceptualization of that experience; (c) support for women's efforts to define their own educational tasks and develop their own individual styles of work; and (d) arrangements for egalitarian, collaborative construction of knowledge among teachers and students.

This study investigates the relationship between cognitive development, as measured by changes in Kohlberg's moral development schema, and long-term reconstructive memory in adolescent and adult women. The hypothesis that the past is reconstructed to conform with current developmental stages was examined, and the results indicated that (a) when developmental gains were made over a 1-year interval, women used a higher stage perspective to reconstruct the decision making involved in resolving a problematic pregnancy and, hence, reconstructed the events in different terms than were originally presented; (b) when developmental gains were not made over a 1 -year interval, women reconstructed the events in the same terms as originally presented. Further analysis of the data indicated that those subjects who made developmental gains also referred to a phenomenon of "memory loss." These results support the hypothesis that memory is reconstructive rather than reproductive.This study explores the relationship between structural development in adolescence and adulthood and long-term autobiographical memory. Two schools of thought-the Ebbinghaus tradition and the Bartlett approach (Baddeley, 1976)-describe the ways that past events are remembered. The first assumes that memory is reproductive. Here the intervention of a code for processing an event being committed to memory is assumed. The qualities of the coding process, as seen by researchers in this tradition, are probably best understood by using the metaphor of photography: The person is likened to a video camera that faithfully, but unselectively, commits the passing scene to memory. The person, like the camera, is not seen as changing his or her nature and capacityThe authors would like to thank Dan Wagner, who served as a guide to the memory literature, Dana Jack for her inspiration and help in the formulation of this article, Anita Lancia for her editorial expertise and guidance, Clark Power, who scored and coded the responses to the Kohlberg dilemmas, and Peter Salovey for his guidance and work in editing this manuscript and for his knowledge in the field of social cognition and behavior.