Women's development theory

Women's development theory refers to the seminal work of Mary Field Belenky, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule, published under the title "Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind" (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule 1986). This work describes the process of cognitive development in women as five knowledge positions (or perspectives) through which women view themselves and their relationship to knowledge.

The study and writing of "Women's Ways of Knowing" was a shared process of authorship, which the authors describe in the 1997 10th anniversary addition of the book.

Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) examined the epistemology, or "ways of knowing", of a diverse group of women, with a focus on identity and intellectual development across a broad range of contexts including but not limited to the formal educational system. While conceptually grounded originally in the work of William G. Perry (1970) in cognitive (or intellectual) development and Carol Gilligan (1982) in moral/personal development in women, the authors discovered that existing developmental theories at the time did not address some issues and experiences that were common and significant in the lives and cognitive development of women (Love and Guthrie 1999). While the developmental positions described in "Women's Ways of Knowing" overlap to a large degree with Perry's cognitive developmental scheme, the authors describe additional knowledge perspectives not observed in Perry's study (Perry 1970) and report gender-related influences on cognitive development in women.

The 135 women who participated in Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule's study ranged from age 16 to over 60, came from rural and urban populations, and varied in socioeconomic class, ethnicity and educational history (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule 1986, Love and Guthrie 1999). As such, they represented a more diverse group than was included in Perry's 1970 study of male students at Harvard. The authors illustrated how the epistemological assumptions of the participating women were intimately linked to their perceptions of themselves and their relationship to their world. Each of the five "ways of knowing", or knowledge perspectives, represents a different point in the women's cognitive development, dependent on conceptions of self (self), relationship with others (voice) and understanding of the origins and identity of authority, truth and knowledge (mind) (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule 1986, Love and Guthrie 1999).

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