Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years A Scheme

by Perry, William G.

• ISBN13: 9780787941185
• ISBN10: 0787941182
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-11-02
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Summary

Since its original publication in 1970, this landmark book by William Perry has remained the cornerstone of much of the student development research that followed. Using research conducted with Harvard undergraduates over a fifteen-year period, Perry derived an Anduring framework for characterizing student development--a scheme so accurate that it still informs and advances investigations into student development across gAnders and cultures.Drawing from firsthand accounts, Perry traces a path from students' adolescence into adulthood. His nine-stage model describes the steps that move students from a simplistic, categorical view of knowledge to a more complex, contextual view of the world and of themselves. Throughout this journey of cognitive development, Perry reveals that the most significant changes occur in forms in which people perceive their world rather than in the particulars of their attitudes and concerns. He shows ultimately that the nature of intellectual development is such that we should pay as much attention to the processes we use as to the content.In a new introduction to this classic work, Lee Knefelkamp--a close colleague of Perry's and a leading expert on college student development--evaluates the book's place in the literature of higher education. Knefelkamp explains how the Perry scheme has shaped current thinking about student development and discusses the most significant research that has since evolved from Perry's groundbreaking effort.Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years is a work that every current and future student services professional must have in their library.

Author Biography

WILLIAM G. PERRY, JR. was head of the Bureau of Study Counsel, an educational research unit, at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xi	(28)
Foreword	xxxix	(4)
Preface	x1iii	(4)
The Author	x1vii
1. Introduction and Resume	1	(16)
Origin of the Study	4	(3)
Procedure	7	(3)
Main Line of Development	10	(1)
Conditions of Delay, Deflection, and Regression	11	(2)
Rating of Four-Year Protocols	13	(1)
Rating of Single Interviews	14	(1)
Rating of Excerpts	14	(1)
Rating of Condensed Four-Year Reports	15	(1)
Limits of the Findings	15	(1)
Significance of the Study	16	(1)
2. Context of Students' Reports	17	(14)
The Students	17	(2)
Interviewing	19	(12)
3. The Students' Experience	31	(14)
The General Experience	33	(12)
4. Concepts of the Scheme	45	(19)
Assumptions about the Generation of Meaning	46	(1)
The Concept of Structure	47	(1)
The Concept of Development	48	(3)
The Concept of Stages or "Positions"	51	(3)
Assumptions about Motivation	54	(7)
Layout of the Scheme	61	(2)
Synthesis	63	(1)
5. The Developmental Scheme	54	(161)
Overview	64	(2)
Position 1: Basic Duality	66	(14)
Position 2: Multiplicity Pre-legitimate	80	(19)
Position 3: Multiplicity Subordinate	99	(6)
Position 4: Multiplicity Correlate or Relativism Subordinate	105	(16)
Position 5: Relativism Correlate, Competing, or Diffuse	121	(28)
Position 6: Commitment Foreseen	149	(21)
Position 7, 8, and 9: (7) Initial Commitment, (8) Orientation in Implications of Commitment, (9) Developing Commitment (s)	170	(28)
Alternatives to Growth: Temporizing--Retreat--Escape	198	(27)
6. Critique	225	(18)
The Study in Its Setting	225	(6)
The Study's Boundaries	231	(1)
Implications of the Study	232	(11)
Bibliography	243	(36)
Index	279