Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University

Bhavan’s Leelavati Munshi College of Education

Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi
(Recognised by NCTE and affiliated to GGSIPU)
BACHELOR OF EDUCATION
2020-22
Semester-I

Course Title- Reading and reflecting on text(RRT)

Course Code- BED152

Topic- IN A DIFFERENT VOICE :- WOMEN’S

CONCEPTION OF SELF AND MORALITY

Submitted To: Submitted By:

DR. RUCHI ARORA GEETANJALI BARIK
ENROLLMENT NO-02555602120
INTRODUCTION
Carol Giligan was a student of the psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg.
She specialised in how individuals develop morally. Giligan was born
on November 28th 1936 in New York. “ She attended Swarthmore
college for her undergraduate degree in English literature, graduating
in 1958. She quickly moved onto a master’s degree in clinical
psychology at Radcliffe college. In 1961 she earned her MA there.
After she earned her MA she decided to pursue a Ph.D. in social
psychology at Harvard. It was after she graduated from the prestigious
school that she started teaching at the university of Chicago with Eric
Erikson. He was one of the big influencer on the way she thought of
MORAL DEVELOPMENT.

SUMMARY
Her theory is divided into three stages of moral development
beginning from selfish to social or conventional morality and finally
to post conventional or principal morality. “women must learn to deal
to their own interests and to the interests of others. She thinks that
women hesitate to judge because they see the complexities of
relationships.
Giligan’s stages of Ethic of care:-
STAGE GOAL
Pre conventional Individual survival
Transition is from selfishness to responsibility of others.
Conventional Self sacrifice is goodness
Transition is from goodness to truth that is in the person
Post conventional Principle of non- violence
Do not others or self.
PRE-CONVENTIONAL STAGE:-
 Person only cares for themselves in order to ensure survival.
 This is how everyone is in as childrens.
 In this transitional phase, the person’s attitude is considered
selfish, and the person sets the connection between themselves
and others.
CONVENTIONAL:-
 Responsibility.
 More care shown to other people.
 Giligan says this is shown in the role of mother and wife.
 Situation sometimes carries to ongoing needs of self.
 In this transitional phase, tension between responsibility of
caring for others and caring for self are faced.
POST-CONVENTIONAL:-
 Acceptance of the principle of care for self and others is shown.
 Some people never reach this level.

GILIGAN’S THEORY AND SOCIETY

Giligan’s ideas are against the struggle of women against our
society’s ideas of their “GENDER-DETERMINED” role. According
to Giligan, women can gain personal independence after they forgot
about the idea that their proper role is to overcome their interests of
their husbands, children, or other people they care about. Giligan says
that in our society women really like to help others, however they
should care just as much about themselves as they do about others.

GILIGAN’S THEORY AND EDUCATION

Carol Giligan’s theory helps both men and women in seeing each
other in a different perspective. In terms of education everyone should
focus on it and everyone’s need for education is important. A person
should not put the needs of others in front of their own, especially in
the case of education.

GILIGAN’S THEORY AND THE WORKPLACE

A person could undergo this process of “THE ETHIC OF CARE”
when entering a new job. The pre-conventional stage is shown when
the job is just acquired, and a good impression is trying to be made.
This is followed by conventional stage, which can be seen after
developing relationships with colleagues. This might be followed by
the post-conventional stage when care for oneself and another
colleague might be equal. (Not everyone reaches the post-
conventional stage).

EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF GILIGAN’S THEORY

By listening to to women’s experiences, Giligan offered that a
morality of care can serve in the place of the morality of justice and
rights as espoused by Kohlberg.
Giligan’s theory has general application:- Both males and females go
through a development process that includes a period of trying to
please others at the expense of self. As educators, we need to make
the learners realize that it is okay to keep yourself first and make
yourself a priority. Wants Vs. Needs, Needs Vs. Responsibility, Self
Vs. Others have all factored into many important life decisions
especially that of women.
The teaching methods should be chosen in a way that it considers
student’s individual characteristics, needs and interests.
She has provided the stages of ethics of care which are pre-
conventional, conventional and post-conventional. She talked about
morality, dilemmas and ambitious people. These should be taught in
the class to let students understand about these particular terms in
depth, so that they can apply it in their real life.
Giligan’s study of women eventually helped pave the way for more
enlightened study of men too. She helped us to understand that it
wasn’t just girls and women who had a different voice than the one
that society and science chose to hear. It was found that young biys
build very caring bonds with their friends but that those caring
instincts and the relationships that they support are discouraged and
often abandoned as he grows.

CONCLUSION
Her theory is based on the notion that men’s and women’s different
emphasis lead them to different styles of moral reasoning.

EMPHASIS STYLE OF REASONING

MEN:-separation and autonomy= stresses justice, fairness and rights
WOMEN:-connection and relationships=stresses wants, needs, and
interests of particular people.
Giligan claims that most moral development theorists have used male
norms rather than human norms to measure all moral development.
The result: women have routinely “failed”. As an example, she uses
Lawrence kohlberg’s six-stage process of determining an individual’s
ability to function as a moral agent; girls and women rarely got past
stage three of the six-stage model when tested.
Giligan’s empirical study:- 29 pregnant women deciding whether or
not to have abortions. She found three levels of moral reasoning:
1. Moral agent overemphasis her own interests
2. Moral agent overemphasizes other’s interests
3. Moral agent strikes a balance between her own and other’s
interests.
Giligan hinted that the ideal moral thinker might be more inclined to
an ethics of care than an ethics of justice and that girls growing into
women who put other people first (as opposed to boys who grow into
men who put themselves first) is not a sign of women’s moral
inferiority but of women’s moral depth.

EXPERIENCE OF WORKING IN GROUP

For the purpose of discussing this article by Carol Giligan our whole
class is divided into 5 groups and each group has given a different
task as follows:-
Group 1:- Presented the summary of the text with its critical analysis.
Each student of the group divided the task among themselves and then
clubbed the whole thing together. It added more life and colour to the
article.
Group 2:- Presented the issues addressed in the text and opened the
house for discussion by everyone.
Group 3:- Presented a video on the article depicting the transitions in
a very innovative way through a video.
Group 4:- Presented a modern perspective of the article by taking
various case studies and examples of today’s modern women. Men
fail to understand systematic oppression and systems put in place
from years, thinking women are predisposed to taking care. Women
want equal freedom and opportunity outside their homes in the
society but fail to put in fight and stand their ground at their own
homes in front of their less educated fathers and brothers, bearing it
may jeopardize their relationships. They also talked about gender
biasness and depiction of women in movies, serials etc. in popular
culture.
Group 5:- Presented the educational implications of carol giligan’s
article and gave a critical perspective on that. They also discussed the
muted theory which leads to the unimportance of women’s voice in
this gender biased society.
This whole task of division of work somehow managed to club many
ideas and thought together. I could also make out some more meaning
of the same article in a much better way better than the earlier when I
read it by myself.
Active discussion, innovative and informative presentations and the
detailed feedback make this task even more enjoyable.