Traditionally women have been signified to be "for others", never for themselves. This conceptualisation is also present in the discourses about literacy. The traditional discourse justifies women's literacy based on the need to improve family health, well-being, educational access, and so on. Thus, it is seen as a tool for other ends…

In a series of three papers, I examine the identity development of three Chinese women teachers as they moved back and forth between Eastern and Western cultures and languages amid the rapidly changing events of the last four decades. This life-based narrative inquiry, situated between non-fiction, fiction, and academic discourses opens up…

Traditional theories of development view separation and individuation as primary tasks of adolescents; the self-in-relation framework, however, argues that the autonomous and separate self-paradigm does not describe female development. Current research suggests that self-esteem arises from subscribing to separate self-definitions for males and…

The education of women, involving both their educational/career ambitions and their concern for intimate relationships, is discussed. As traditional undergraduates enter liberal arts colleges, two important developmental tasks arise: establishing a sense of self independent of family and developing a capacity for intimacy. While today's college…

The book explores the psychological aspects of sex-role development and investigates various approaches which have been suggested to provide greater equality between females and males. Chapter one describes the psychology of women and identifies possible approaches toward integration of male and female characteristics. Chapter two discusses…

Because knowledge of educational opportunities is one of the most important factors in choosing a career, the objectives of this unit are to provide both the leader and American Indian girls involved in the career development program with general information about educational opportunities and to provide sources when specific information is…

To show a variety of careers and how and why each woman chose her field of study, this unit presents the stories of both historical and contemporary Indian women who have excelled in their professions. Although numerous and conflicting stories have been written on the lives of the historical women, the unit provides only one version of each life.…

The unit includes an introduction, "About Careers," which explains to American Indian parents the changes that have taken place in the work of Indian women from long ago to the present. The section includes information about women workers and the many career opportunities now available to them, as well as some of the barriers they face.…

The four-year followup study (the fifth and last of such four-year evaluations of graduates) aimed at pinpointing the program's benefits to the graduates in the educational social/personal, and financial areas. Thirty-two of the 41 graduates responded to the mailed questionnaire, which elicited demographic, occupational, educational, financial,…

The study explored the impact of mid-career changes for women who were enrolled in or had recently completed a program in the Wisconsin Vocational, Technical, and Adult Education (VTAE) System for the purpose of changing careers from housewife and mother to that of labor force participant. Sixty-six women, aged 30-49, returned a survey…

Drawing on published feminist literature, this essay deconstructs developmentalism as a metanarrative that contributes to the oppression and exploitation of women and underpins educational practice. First, I examine feminist critiques of developmentalism, distinguishing between "insider critiques" formulated by feminist psychologists evaluating…

Two studies conducted at the University of Maryland during the 1973-74 academic year evaluated the efficacy of programs designed to meet the needs of women and sought to determine whether the provision of a supportive learning environment, rather than individual or group counseling, would influence women's life styles. In the first study 36…

The Confidence Clinic at Clackamas Community College was designed to help women on welfare to achieve and maintain self-sufficiency. The need for such a program was evidenced by the fact that 11% of the county's population were women heads of households who had below median family incomes, and by the apparent increase of such situations. The…

This book contains six presentations from the American Society of Training and Development National Conference in St. Louis. The paper, Career Development, Personal Growth, and Experiential Learning, sees learning as the central task of career development, with experiential learning theory providing a framework for mapping career changes and a…

Focusing on four Mexican American women from migrant farmworker backgrounds and one woman recently immigrated from Mexico, the study explored the attitudes and experiences of the Mexican American culture considered important by Mexican American migrant women themselves. Extensive open-ended interviews, conducted mostly in the women's homes, were…