Odd Girl Out Read Free Page A

pioneering research with girls I owe a huge intellectual debt. With a group of colleagues, Brown and Gilligan developed a "Listening Guide" to use in their interviews. 3 The method emphasizes flexibility and harmony with the interview subject, and it discourages orthodox interview protocols. Instead, researchers are to "move where the girls [lead]" them. The method is especially important to girls who might otherwise stay quiet in the presence of an interviewer who appears to have an agenda. Staying with the girls' voices, rather than emphasizing one's own, "can help girls to develop, to hold on to, or to recover knowledge about themselves, their feelings, and their desires," according to Brown and Gilligan. "Taking girls seriously encourages them to take their own thoughts, feelings, and experience seriously, to maintain this knowledge, and even to uncover knowledge that has become lost to them." With such an emotional issue as girls' bullying, this seemed more than appropriate.
    As I sought out more schools to work with, I got mixed responses from administrators. Most were relieved to have me talk with their students. Staff had been mystified by the intensity of the girls' anger toward one another. They were bewildered and overwhelmed by the episodes unfolding around them.
    The smaller towns and some private schools were less welcoming. Their refusal to grant me access, though never explained, seemed to me a sign of anxiety that the truth would be discovered about their girls: that yes, indeed, they
were
capable of being mean. In a society raising girls to be loving and "nice," this was no small exposure.
    Because of the sensitive nature of the discussions, I made another decision. To get a comprehensive account of the problem of girl bullying, I had originally planned to travel to as many different cities as I could. After a few intensive sessions with the girls, I knew this would be impossible. To earn their trust, and the faith of their teachers and parents, I would need to become a part of their communities. For this reason I chose to stay in three parts of the country for extended periods. I was rewarded with almost unconditional access and support by many of my host schools. Two schools even reversed their policy of not permitting researchers on campus to allow me to work with their girls.
    In exchange for their generosity, I promised to change the names of the girls, staff members, and schools. Other than giving an economic and racial profile, I use very few details to describe each school. I worked with a total of ten over a period of one year. In a major middle-Atlantic city, I visited three schools: the Linden School, a private school with mostly middle-class students, 25 percent of whom are minority; Marymount, a private all-girls school with a predominantly middle-class population and about 20 percent students of color; and Sackler Day School, a suburban middle-class Jewish day school. In a second Northeastern city, I visited Clara Barton High School, an alternative high school, and Martin Luther King Elementary; both schools had predominantly black, Puerto Rican, and Dominican populations. I also worked at the Arden School, a laboratory school with a mostly middle-class population that is 20 percent minority, and Sojourner Truth, an all-girls school with a majority black and Latina student body. Finally, I spent several weeks visiting the elementary, middle, and high schools in Ridgewood, a small town in northeast Mississippi.
    At each school, I conducted group and individual interviews with students and interested staff and parents. At some schools, interviews took as many as three or four hours. At other schools, where time for the interviews was more limited, the meetings were shorter. At two of the urban schools, I struggled to connect with some students and parents. The families were mostly poor, and some did not have telephones, although I am sure my presence as a white, middle-class woman deterred an