Journal Entry 5

Ways of Knowing

Spring 2005

Erin Peters

Perry’s depiction of ways of knowing for men can be viewed as a paradigm that helps individuals interpret personal experiences in a similar sense as Kuhn’s interpretation of a paradigm. Paradigms are ideas that are used to make sense of various environmental and cognitive inputs, and in the same way, ways of knowing can be used to make a person’s environment and interactions coherent. Perry describes discrete, orderly paradigms of thinking which people utilize as lenses to help them interpret the world. Through his didactic recreation of a “class,” Perry illustrates the evolution from one stage to another. Perry states that, “most students tend to advance from one to another (stage) in response to teachings or readings that impinge on the boundaries of their intelligible universe of the moment” (Perry, 1985). The sequence from one stage to another is sequential and linear. Stage one gives way to stage two when an impinging event is introduced to the person. The change from one stage to another seems to be caused by cognitive dissonance. A stimulus from outside of the person enters the person’s senses and is perceived. If the stimulus does not fit with the person’s current paradigm, it causes the person to deconstruct the current paradigm in favor of a paradigm that is better at explaining the stimulus. The discrepant event causes a shift in the way of thinking because the old way of thinking is no longer adequate to explain the event. In this way Perry’s idea of changing from stage to stage is very similar to Kuhn’s idea of a paradigm shift. According to Kuhn, if a stimulus appears that causes cognitive dissonance, one of three things can happen. The person can ignore the stimulus and keep old paradigms, the person can fit the even into the old paradigm by explaining away any discrepancies, and the person can build a new paradigm that will better explain the stimulus.

Belenky et al. describe similar stages of cognitive development, but the mechanism for change from stage to stage is different from Perry’s idea of changing stages. Belenky et al. describe the change in ways of knowing as initially triggered by an event or idea, but the way of knowing is ultimately caused by internal devices. The stimulus a person receives may cause cognitive dissonance immediately, but that alone does not cause a change in the way of knowing in women. The way of knowing for women changes from level to level when the woman internalizes the difference and allows the change. Depending on the level of knowing, the woman may or may not know how the change is made. A woman who is in stage two may state that the change just occurred to her one day, while a woman in stage four may be able to explicitly discuss the reason for change. A woman in an early stage of knowing, Bonnie, discusses her change in thinking from silence to received knowledge, she explains the stimulus triggered her eventual internal change. The responsibilities of parenthood encouraged Bonnie to move out of silence, but she needed to make meaning out of the responsibility before the shift occurs. She states that it just “popped in her head” (Belenky et al., 1986). Minna describes her shift to procedural knowledge as “I think everything out, and I want to make sure I understand exactly what’s going on before I do anything” (Belenky et al, 1986). The changes leading to constructed learning were described in Women’s ways of knowing as “providing new, unique training ground in which problems of self and other, inner and outer authority, voice and silence can be worked through. The outside environment may influence change, but it does not occur until the woman embraces and makes her own meaning from the experience. Only then can the change in stage happen.

I believe that Kuhn’s idea of paradigm shifts occur in a more feminine fashion as described by Belenky et al. because paradigm shifts don’t occur in science immediately. The shift occurs in the community of scientists over a long period of time. The hold-outs for old paradigms eventually die and are replaced by new scientists who have only been exposed to the new paradigm. When crisis occurs, a new paradigm is not accepted whole heartedly by each scientist at the moment the paradigm is shown to be useful. A paradigm is considered useful when the majority of the scientific community eventually accepts it. The exact point in time when the new paradigm is accepted cannot be pinpointed because the adoption of a new paradigm is a gradual process. If paradigms were adopted in a fashion more like Perry’s stages of change, then as a paradigm is developed, scientists would adopt it immediately and simultaneously. The crisis in science would immediately cause each scientist to evolve into the new paradigm. Instead, it is slowly adopted until the old paradigm is no longer capable of explaining the discrepant events that the new paradigm can explain. This manner of change in ways of knowing is more like the feminine model, rather than Perry’s model. It takes time for the scientists to internalize a new paradigm, in the same way women interpret knowledge as connected procedural knowledge. Once the knowledge is internalized, it is able to be constructed. When the paradigm is constructed, then scientists adopt it as a useful tool.

To understand my own change in ways of knowing, some context must be established. I came to America from Northern Ireland at age 3 as a refugee when the majority of my family was killed in a retribution bombing. I lived with the surviving members of my family, my grandparents, until age 6, when they died within 3 month of each other. I grew up in several different foster homes. Because of my personal experience, I argue that the progression through the stages is not linear, but iterative depending on environment. When I was in second grade, I recall thinking about who I would be if my current foster parents were my biological parents. I realized that my body would look differently, but I speculated that my spirit would be exactly the same, because spirit was not generated from genes. Once I felt comfortable with explaining this question, I expressed it to teachers and peers. When most of the adults I spoke with tried to place me in psychological care, I became silent on this subject, along with most other subjects. If I followed Belenky et al.’s progression, I would not have regressed into silence. Instead, I would have just rejected the next level and stayed at my current level of ways of knowing. Another example of the impact of environment on ways of knowing for women occurred when I was in high school. I excelled in math and was taking college calculus in my senior year of high school. Because my current foster home suddenly became violent, I left to live on my own in another city. I took several jobs in this new city as a secretary and a receptionist, and I gave up on the idea of going to college for a few years. My environment during this time in my life constantly reinforced my position as a second class citizen. After 3 years of working in jobs that did not require a high level of cognition, I took a position as a secretary at The George Washington University where I could take classes as a benefit. When I began to take classes, I purposely did not sign up for math classes because I felt that I wasn’t good at math. When I was required to take Calculus, I still felt that I was not good in math. Even when the professor encouraged me to enroll in the Engineering School, I did not believe I was a good math student because I had been told many times in the past few years that I was not capable of thinking in that way. I had regressed into level two of Belenky et al.’s model and did not retain any of my way of knowing from the higher levels.

Eventually I began to understand that I could accomplish complex math problems, but only after a few years of successfully completing courses. My environment at The George Washington University was encouraging me to take further math courses, but I did not begin to think on a higher level until I had convinced myself of that. I needed to internalize the information in the same way Belenky et al. are describing. I constantly incorporate the environment as a reflection of my own attributes. The women interviewed in Belenky et al.’s book seemed to speak about a theme in all stages of knowing, the awareness of community. Constructed knowledge learners portrayed their need to “embrace all the pieces of self,” which were the women’s roles in terms of their various communities. Women at all levels of knowing related their knowledge in terms of community. In order to have a voice, you first need to hear other people, then speak, and lastly be heard by other people. If community is eliminated from this didactic relationship, voice is irrelevant. If a person speaks and no one hears, it is the same as not speaking at all.

I would argue that the stages of women’s ways of knowing is not entirely linear. I propose that learners shift among silence, received knowledge and separate knowing until they make the leap to connected knowing. However, connected knowing is a prerequisite to constructed knowledge. One of the reasons I believe this is from my own experiences as a young girl shifting among the lower levels, but once established in a higher way of knowing, being able to remain a constructivist learner. Belenky et al. mention the possibility of regression in describing a woman moving out of procedural knowing, but do not develop the idea further. Since women are influenced by their community, having people around them doubt a particular woman’s ability to think could cause regression to a previous way of knowing. A woman in subjective knowing receives knowledge from outside sources, so an authority can tell her to remain silent, and she complies. A woman who thinks using procedural knowledge uses the central feature of doubt to direct her thinking. If the woman begins doubting herself as a source, it is possible that she reverts to subjective knowledge and depends on authorities for information. A woman approaching separate knowing could be bullied back to silence, but later evolve to higher levels of knowing given the correct conditions. I believe the high levels of knowing, connected and constructed, are difficult to regress from because the cognitive connections required for these states are too complex to undo. Belenky et al. use the metaphor of a web or a net in developing the connections between ideas and perspectives. Once a web or net is established, it is a very difficult item to unravel.

References

Belenky, Mary, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill Tarule (1986). Women’s ways of knowing. HarperCollins.

Kuhn, Thomas (1976). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press.

Perry, William (1985). “Different worlds in the same classroom.” On teaching and learning.