October 25, 2002
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Acclaimed social psychologist and New York University professor Carol Gilligan will discuss “Teaching and Learning in a Different Voice” on Monday, Nov. 11, at 6 p.m. in Ingram Hall at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music.
Gilligan’s appearance is in conjunction with the Chancellor’s Series on Great Teaching at Vanderbilt. Gilligan will make opening comments and Allison Pingree, director of Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching, will moderate an extended question and answer session. The event is free and open to the public.
Gilligan’s 1982 book, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, has been called “the little book that started a revolution” by Harvard University Press. In a Different Voice grew out of Gilligan’s work with psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, whose influential research on moral development led to his landmark stage theory of moral development, justice and rights. Gilligan departed from Kohlberg’s work, noting he studied only privileged white men and boys, giving no voice to women.
Gilligan further noted that men and women are socialized to speak in “different” moral voices. While many thought that gender equality demanded we think of men and women as being virtually the same, Gilligan’s “difference feminism” suggested men tend to think in terms of rules and justice and women are more inclined to think in terms of caring and relationships. The goal, for Gilligan, is to move toward equality while honoring these differences. Gloria Steinem calls In a Different Voice “the book that completed the human cycle by bringing women’s lives into it.”
Named one of Time magazine’s 25 most influential Americans, Gilligan taught for more than 35 years at Harvard University, during which time the Harvard Center on Gender and Education was established. In June of 2002, she accepted an interdisciplinary appointment at New York University’s schools of Education and Law. In 1992, Gilligan received the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in Education, an equivalent to the Nobel Prize for the field of education. In addition to In a Different Voice, she is the author of Between Voice and Silence: Women and Girls, Race and Relationship and The Birth of Pleasure, among other works.
Gilligan will sign copies of her books from 3-4 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 11, at the Vanderbilt University bookstore in Rand Hall. A reception honoring Gilligan will precede her lecture at 5 p.m. in the Ingram Lobby at the Blair School of Music. Parking is available in the Capers Garage at the corner of 24th and Capers avenues, diagonal from the Blair School.
Gilligan comes to campus as part of the Vanderbilt University Chancellor’s Lecture Series in conjunction with Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching. The Chancellor’s Lecture Series is designed to advance and integrate classroom learning at Vanderbilt with broader social issues and concerns and to connect the Vanderbilt and Nashville communities. The Center for Teaching promotes the view that great teaching is a constant process of inquiry, experimentation and reflection, and seeks to facilitate dialogue about teaching and learning excellence.
For more information about this event, call 322-4959 or email
chancellors-lecture-series@vanderbilt.edu.
Contact: Kara Furlong, kara.c.furlong@vanderbilt.edu