Hi Betsy - I'm referring more to Piaget's standards of "competence"
in each of the discontinous stages, and not really many girls he has tested -
the way I recall it, and please someone correct me if I'm mixing my history,
but Piaget was working for Binet, who at that time was "measuring" the
"intelligence" of the boys in Paris' schools as a way to institute a more
"equitable" education system - one which could meet the needs of different
students' abilities
- it was effectively
establishing a
class-based system of education ; i.e., the less-intelligent students were
lower class, and so were placed in schools on the basis of
their "levels", which were, in fact, levels of class & access to kinds
of "knowledge" = "languages" -
Piaget was hired as a researcher to read through Binet's thousands of
test scores, and compile them, chart them, etc., and
Piaget claims he noticed similarities in the age groupings,
and that it was this which inspired his forays into cognitive
development.
He was always very explicitly interested in boys' intelligence because it
was their tests
and scores which "mattered" at that time (historically);
,
and he was very specifically interested in mathematical-logical thinking,
which, historically again, has never been conceptually-designed to include
women
or girls, but has been a standard of excellence based upon
men & boys' participation in kinds of knowledge/languages.
So, when Piaget "tests" girls, he was still privileging kinds of
measurements which presume kids of masculine intelligence.
[Valerie Walkerdine has a considerable amount written about this issue
of girls' relations to "cognitive" theory -]
The other gender-problem is the ways girsl & boys respond to tests, and to
to reserachers/authorities.
Really, I am finding it harder and harder, and this is indeed my own limitation,
but I am finding it harder and harder to "overlook" these aspects
of historical theories such as those generated by Piaget ...
I am mostly at a loss to understand the "need" for more "conceptualizing"
of "mind" or "mental operations" when we are already aware that this
is itself a specific cultural myth which does not cross borders easily.
I suppose that's what I mean. Does that make sense?
diane
"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right." Ani Difranco
*********************************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction,
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada
snailmail: 3519 Hull Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada V5N 4R8