Longitudinal Ego and Moral Study of Women's Lives, 1973-1977

This study began in the spring of 1973 as a psychological growth curriculum designed to promote and test the ego and moral development of a group of female high school students. The curriculum was developed by the contributor with a classroom teacher and school counselor through the Minneapolis Public Schools/University of Minnesota Developmental Education Program. The sample consisted of 23 female high school sophomores who registered for a one term elective class, "A Study of Women Through Literature," at an urban public high school. Subsequent to the initial 1973 curriculum intervention, 21 of the original 23 students were followed up annually for four years. The participants were 15-1/2 to 16 years old at the time of the initial testing. The pretests included a moral judgment interview (Kohlberg, 1969), a sentence completion measure of ego maturity (Loevinger and Wessler, 1970), an attitude toward women scale (Spence, 1973), a self-report questionnaire of critical events, and demographic information. Students then participated in the 12-week course which included field interviewing of girls and women across the life span. The interview format was designed to aid students in understanding the major motivational and value positions of their interviewees, as well as to illustrate differences in developmental stages. Students also read plays and short stories selected to provide a developmental view of ego and moral maturity, and studied articles on issues of women's rights and roles. At the course's conclusion and in the four annual follow-ups, the students completed the above mentioned measures. In 1976-1977, subjects also received a measure of identity that was developed by Gilligan. The Murray Research Archive holds the completed questionnaires and developmental measures for data collected from 1973 to 1977. A 1981 follow-up of the sample was also completed; the follow up data are not available