The Other Philosophy Club: America's First Academic Women Philosophers

Recent research on women philosophers has led to more discussion of the merits of many previously forgotten women in the past several years. Yet due to the fact that a thinker's significance and influence are historical phenomena, women remain relatively absent in “mainstream” discussions of philosophy. This paper focuses on several successful academic women in American philosophy and takes notice of how they succeeded in their own era. Special attention is given to three important academic women philosophers: Mary Whiton Calkins, Ellen Bliss Talbot , and Marietta Kies.     

Age‐related variations and sex differences in gender cleavage during middle childhood

Gender cleavage, the segregation of the sexes, is a powerful phenomenon affecting socialization during childhood, but its developmental trajectory is far from clear. Sociometric responses by 299 boys and girls in Grades 3 to 6 from a group preference record were used to investigate age‐related variations and sex differences in gender cleavage. Moreno's (1953) developmental model of gender cleavage was examined in the light of sociocultural changes, as well as advances in the theory and measurement of gender cleavage. Sex differences were found in same‐gender preference, with older elementary girls showing greater same‐gender preference than boys of the same age. However, this finding, plus the absence of gender differences in cross‐gender evaluations, did not support more recent developmental accounts of gender cleavage. Linear trend analyses contradicted Moreno's basic precept of increasing same‐gender preference between Grades 3 and 6. While same‐gender acceptance and rejection were relatively similar regardless of grade level, cross‐gender acceptance was greater in higher than in lower grades and the reverse was true for rejection. Furthermore, weaker gender cleavage effects in rejection data than in acceptance data suggested that strong same‐gender liking does not infer equally robust cross‐gender dislike. Gender cleavage appears to be relative rather than absolute. A more complex model is proposed incorporating sex differences as well as rejection evaluations     

A STOCHASTIC ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT IN SELF-ANALYTIC GROUPS

The purpose of this research was to examine patterns of information-processing over time in self-analytic groups. The communication in two groups was categorized by means of the Systems Information Processing Analysis (SIPA) category system. Messages were coded on four dimensions of information-processing: (1) source of information, (2) time orientation, (3) evolution of information, and (4) reduction of equivocality. The sequence of coded messages was then compared with a first-order Markov chain model. The results indicate the communication data from the groups are first-order; the groups are nonhomogeneous; stereotypy (predictability of patterns) is low to moderately high across the four dimensions; patterns in the evolution of information dimension are stationary over time. Patterns in the three other SIPA dimensions are nonstationary (time dependent) and suggest nonlinear changes. The information-processing patterns in the groups indicate that most information was spontaneously generated within the groups; the predominate time orientation was “present”; the form of message generally was either neutral opinion or new information; and moderate to moderately high uncertainty existed over time.