Every person grows from childhood to adolescence through different means and at different rates. Certainly, this has been a subject that has both bewildered and fascinated psychologists for centuries. Such noted scholars as Freud, Jung, Horney, Erikson, and many others, have looked at the struggle of children to achieve some understanding of ego or self identity and to develop into adults by examining parental pressures, mimicry, sexual repression or lack thereof, dreams, goals, and aspirations.
Certainly, long before psychology was an agreed upon science, children were thrilled and entertained by stories of adventure and moral dilemma that involved a character's growth through personal decision. Parents too, surely have used these stories as a means, not only to lull their children to sleep of an evening, but to lend an exciting and emotionally charged bend to the direction of their offspring's moral development and self awareness. Such stories as the adventures of Robin Hood and King Arthur, or the darker tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel all relate stories of quests, personal fulfillment, moral dilemmas, and the results of incorrect behavior.
It is interesting to note that despite the fact that some of these stories deal with specifically a young hero or heroine, both they and the schools of theory to which psychologists attach themselves do little to separate morality and awareness of self by gender. Recently, however, two women by the name of Nona Lyons and Carol Gilligan, following up on the work of others, have begun to look at the development of morality in children, and its continued growth, practice, and relation to self identity as a very gender specific process (Lyons, 1983). Their studies imply that mature men and women, as well as young boys and girls have very distinct ideas about what morality is and how it should be used. This, in turn, causes the different genders t...