Women's Ways of Knowing
- Book Review,
by Mary Field Belenky (Editor)
From Library Journal
From interviews with 135 women (mostly privileged college students) regarding their search for truth and knowledge, the authors (all female faculty members of colleges or universities) determine five learning "perspectives" that characterize "women's way of knowing." The somewhat philosophical text, which skillfully blends narration, documentation, and excerpts from interviews, sees higher education's teaching methods as more responsive to male "impersonalness" than female "connectedness" and recommends ways to improve the situation. On the whole, a work ironically geared more to the dialectician or feminist scholar than to the "integrated constructivist" or "passionate knower." For large public and academic libraries. Janice Arenofsky, formerly with Arizona State Lib., PhoenixCopyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Jesse Larsen
Women's Ways of Knowing offers new and useful understandings of the epistemology (methods and basis) of the development of women's knowledge. While this already classic scholarly work is neither easily nor quickly read, there are many excellent reasons to read, use, and appreciate it. Earlier research in this field concentrated on predominately undergraduate middle- and upper-class Caucasian males. Based on interviews with 135 women of various ages from a variety of cultural and economic backgrounds, Women's Ways of Knowing creates five "not necessarily fixed, exhaustive, or universal categories" of how women know what we know. The results of this study are insightful and applicable to everyday life. The authors, instead of speaking from the distant land of "objectivity" and the omnipotent "one," say "we" and talk about their process: how and why they did this study, the details of their planning, what surprised them, how the results affected their thinking, plans, and progress. A good example of what's possible when love informs science, Women's Ways of Knowing illuminates - with warm and welcome light - scholarly theories about how people learn and know. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.
Book Description
Drawn from the voices of women of varied backgrounds, Women's Ways of Knowing reveals the unique perspectives from which women view reality and draw conclusions about truth, knowledge, and authority. An intellectual and political Our Bodies, Ourselves, this book has had significant impact on debates about learning and gender, and will continue to have resonance throughout the fields of education and psychology for years to come.
Buy from Amazon
Compare Prices
|
|
Home
