Women's Learning Research Articles

Women, knowing, and authenticity: Living with contradictions

AbstractThis chapter examines the myth of “women's learning” and suggests how to develop a teaching practice that is authentic, open to difference, and attentive to power.

The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women's Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy. Ed. Rebecca Messbarger & Paula Findlen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe), 2005. xxxi + 181 pp. 28.50/$45 (hardback); 13/$18 (paperback). ISBN 0-226-01054-6/010055-4

Journal Article The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women's Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy. Ed. Rebecca Messbarger & Paula Findlen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe), 2005. xxxi + 181 pp. £28.50/$45 (hardback); £13/$18 (paperback). ISBN 0–226–01054–6/010055–4 Get access Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 42, Issue 3, July 2006, Page 318, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cql027 Published: 01 July 2006

The Contest for knowledge: debates over women's learning in eighteenth-century Italy

At a time when women were generally excluded from scholarly discourse in the intellectual centers of Europe, four extraordinary female letterate proved their parity as they lectured in prominent scientific and literary academies and published in respected journals. During the Italian Enlightenment, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola, Diamante Medaglia Faini, and Aretafila Savini de Rossi were afforded unprecedented deference in academic debates and epitomized the increasing ability of women to influence public discourse. The Contest for Knowledge reveals how these four women used the methods and themes of their male counterparts to add their voices to the vigorous and prolific debate over the education of women during the eighteenth century. In the texts gathered here, the women discuss the issues they themselves thought most urgent for the equality of women in Italian society specifically and in European culture more broadly. Their thoughts on this important subject reveal how crucial the eighteenth century was in the long history of debates about women in the academy.

The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women's Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy by Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Rebecca Messbarger, Paula Findlen

MLR, I0 I .3, 2006 867 many of the issues she is concerned with have been dealt with in those more northerly traditions that have preoccupied recent emblem studies. The book also contains a dismaying number of typographic widows, and its publishers urgently need to review their policy for the final editing of camera-ready copy. All future work, however, not just on these Italian theorists themselves but on the wider use of emblematic forms both within and beyond Italy, will need henceforth to be grounded in a thorough knowledge of this book. UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW MICHAEL BATH The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women's Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy. By MARIA GAETANA AGNESI and others. Ed. and trans. by REBECCA MESSBARGERand PAULAFINDLEN. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2005. xxxi+i8Ipp. $45 (pbk $i8). ISBN 0-226-OI054-6 (pbk 0-226-O0055-4). The eighteenth century in Italy witnessed a significant increase in both women's writing and writing about women, with women's education the most frequent topic of debate. Should women be educated at all? If so, inwhat fields and towhat extent? Would the education of women undermine the family as one knew it?Would they in fact still be 'women' once they acquired an education? Are women's minds up to the task anyway? These were the concerns that dominated both men's and women's writings on the subject. While some men were against women's education, those who upheld its validity did so for the sake of something else, be itmaking them better home-makers and mothers or improving their defective judgement. Similar lines of argument were adopted by women, generally accompanied by a host of self legitimation techniques. The present volume contains translations of texts by both women and men on the topic of women's education spanning the century in its Enlightenment period, from Neapolitan philosopher Eleonora Barbapiccola's introduction to her transla tion of Descartes's Principia philosophiae (I722) to philosopher and mathematician Diamante Medaglia Faini's I763 oration Quali studi convengano alle donne, via the dispute held in 1723 at the Accademia de' Ricovrati in Padua with the specific remit 'se debbano ammettersi le donne allo studio delle scienze, e delle belle arti', which was the most visible episode in this continuing debate. Although the Padua dispute began as a debate among men, in its published version (I729) it included two con tributions by women, Aretafila Savini de' Rossi's Apologia in favore degli studii delle donne, and an Oratio, qua ostenditur artium [not 'atrium', p. 120] liberalium studia a femineo sexo neutiquam abhorrere by the nine-year-old Maria Gaetana Agnesi, later to become one of the most distinguished mathematicians of the century. The writings by Barbapiccola, Savini de' Rossi, Agnesi, and Medaglia Faini are translated here in their entirety, while the original male participants in the Padua dispute are whittled down to two, Antonio Vallisneri, who defended women's education, and Giovanni Antonio Volpi, who attacked it. The volume opens with a general introduction by Rebecca Messbarger. This be gins with a contrastive analysis in both diachronic and synchronic terms. It situates the eighteenth-century debate on women's education within the context of the age old querelle des femmes, highlighting its specificity and innovations with regard to the tradition, and also within the context of contemporary women's contribution to in tellectual activity and scholarship, and male views of this. It then focuses on women's own contribution to the debate, highlighting the ambivalences and nuances of their ar gumentative strategies. It concludes with a survey of the studies so far on the subject. This is very informative and stimulating. One minor inaccuracy: Eleonora Fonseca 868 Reviews Pimentel's journal was called Monitore napoletano (Monitore repubblicano by Croce), not Monitore partenopeo (p. io). The translations, which are each preceded by very useful introductions on the authors, read well on the whole. I especially liked the renditions of Agnesi (no mean feat, as her Latin is often hard to unravel) and Barbapiccola, which read as if they were not translations at all. On the other hand, the versions of Volpi, Vallisneri, and Savini de' Rossi are occasionally...

The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women's Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy

The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women's Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy

Science and Women: Why Science (and not Biology) is Biased Against Women Learning Science

Science and Women: Why Science (and not Biology) is Biased Against Women Learning Science

Moving beyond “stupid”: Taking account of the impact of violence on women's learning

This article draws on three Canadian research studies to question conventional understandings that access to adult literacy education is a simple matter of providing programs. In the face of women's experiences of violence, commonly overlooked barriers limit “access.” Different forms of violence, their frequency, and the prevalence of medicalizing discourses about violence are examined. Effects of violence on women's attempts to get to programs, complete courses they begin, and learn successfully, are introduced. Educators are challenged to design literacy programs that will support learning and create conditions to counteract the early “training” which tells women they cannot learn.

The Good Effects of a Whimsical Study: Romance and Women's Learning in Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote

The Good Effects of a Whimsical Study:Romance and Women’s Learning in Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote Sharon Smith Palo (bio) Heroism, romantick Heroism, was deeply rooted in her Heart; it was Her habit of thinking, a Principle imbib'd from Education.1 In recent years, studies of Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote (1752) have focused largely on Lennox's contribution to the discourse surrounding the development of the novel. These readings usefully explore Lennox's representation of the complex relationship between the romance and the novel and frequently cite the attempts of novelists such as Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding to assert the superiority of their writing projects by distinguishing them from those of romance writers.2 Yet such interpretations fail to consider [End Page 203] how Lennox appropriates the representation of romance reading perpetuated by these novelists in order to participate in other kinds of discourse, most notably that concerning women's learning. Janet Todd briefly considers The Female Quixote within the context of female education, but suggests that the text functions as a conduct book encouraging women's submission to an ideal of womanhood characterized by self-denial and restraint.3 I will argue that Lennox uses the representation of her romance-reading heroine to critique this ideal and to explore the potential of female education to completely reshape women's role within society, particularly within the public sphere. Lennox's exploration of women's learning has its roots in the debate surrounding female education that materialized during the late seventeenth century. This period saw the publication of numerous defences of women's learning, texts that declared women to be men's intellectual equals and called for greater parity in women's and men's educations.4 Her satirical representation of romance reading becomes the vehicle for a serious examination of concerns that proved central for proponents of advanced learning for women. Chief among these concerns is the powerful and often stymieing influence of social custom upon efforts to bring about changes in women's education and, ultimately, in women's lives. Lennox explores this issue throughout her novel as she represents a heroine who attempts to gain control over her life by negotiating between the customs of romance and the customs of eighteenth-century English society. In doing so, she raises the possibility of women's increased participation in public life. In The Female Quixote, Lennox creates a heroine, Arabella, who is "wholly secluded from the World" and leads an isolated existence within the confines of her father's country estate (7). To relieve her boredom, Arabella reads "very bad Translations" of French romances (7). She consumes so many of these voluminous works that she becomes incapable of distinguishing fiction from reality, a condition the narrator describes as the "bad Effects of a whimsical Study" (5). Believing the texts she reads to be accurate representations of her world, Arabella imagines that she herself is a romance heroine, and like these heroines, she resists marriage and seeks adventure. When Arabella [End Page 204] comes of age and is introduced into society, she is often ridiculed for her bizarre notions and seemingly unaccountable behaviour. For this reason, many of Lennox's earliest critics assumed the novel sent a warning to its readers regarding the risks posed by the indiscriminate reading of "dangerous" books;5 however, Lennox represents Arabella as morally and intellectually superior to the other female characters in the novel, and she clearly illustrates that this superiority is not in spite of the heroine's romance reading, but because of it. Arabella's education is undertaken by her father when, at the age of four, he removes her from the direction of her nurses and female attendants: "Finding in her an uncommon Quickness of Apprehension, and an Understanding capable of great Improvements, he resolved to cultivate so promising a Genius with the utmost Care" (6). Despite the encouraging tone of his resolution, Arabella's father calls in teachers to instruct his daughter in primarily ornamental accomplishments— music, dance, French, and Italian. Certainly, this instruction is comparable to the education that many young women of Arabella's social standing would have enjoyed. But Arabella's...

Multiple Voices and Methods: Listening to Women Who Are in Workplace Transition

In this article, the author illustrates, through one participant's transcripts, the two-part method used in research that sought a deeper understanding of the perceived learning of female professionals during workplace transition. Five women participated in a 1-hour interview and a focus group. To give voice to each participant while also identifying common themes and learning experiences, the author used a two-step research method. The first step entailed individual interviews, which the author analyzed using a voice-centered relational method. The author chose the second step, the focus group, to facilitate women's learning from each other's experience.

Reviews: Philosophical Foundations of Adult Education, from Teaching to Mentoring: Principle and Practice, Dialogue and Life in Adult Education, Widening Participation in Higher Education: Report to the Scottish Executive, Innovation and E-Learning: E-Business for an Educational Enterprise, Learning for Life in the 21st Century: Sociocultural Perspectives on the Future of Education, Adult Education and Globalisation: Past and Present, Differently Academic?

Reviews: Philosophical Foundations of Adult Education, from Teaching to Mentoring: Principle and Practice, Dialogue and Life in Adult Education, Widening Participation in Higher Education: Report to the Scottish Executive, Innovation and E-Learning: E-Business for an Educational Enterprise, Learning for Life in the 21st Century: Sociocultural Perspectives on the Future of Education, Adult Education and Globalisation: Past and Present, Differently Academic?

?An Orchid in the Arctic?: Women's Studies in the Rural South

1800 undergraduates and 200 graduate students in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Northwest Georgia. This part of Georgia is extremely religious, with a high concentration of Southern Baptist Christian fundamentalists. The students at Berry are 65 percent female and 6 percent minority, and come mainly from the southeast, especially Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Many identify as conservative Christians. However, Berry also has a significant number of socially progressive students. From these latter students arose a demand for Women's Studies in the mid-1990s. The women's studies program today offers more than twenty courses across the college. Students can receive a minor in Women's Studies or pursue a major through the college's interdisciplinary studies program. Teaching and learning Women's Studies in this environment has been a challenge because we encounter significant resistance to feminist ideas, but it has also been an opportunity for us as feminists to have a significant influence in an environment where we are critically needed. Below we will give both a faculty and a student perspective on Women's Studies in this other location.

"An Orchid in the Arctic": Women's Studies in the Rural South

We are a women's studies faculty member and a student at a small liberal arts college in a conservative town in the southeast. Our "other" location is Berry College, a highly ranked regional liberal arts institution of 1800 undergraduates and 200 graduate students in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Northwest Georgia. This part of Georgia is extremely religious, with a high concentration of Southern Baptist Christian fundamentalists. The students at Berry are 65 percent female and 6 percent minority, and come mainly from the southeast, especially Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Many identify as conservative Christians. However, Berry also has a significant number of socially progressive students. From these latter students arose a demand for Women's Studies in the mid-1990s. The women's studies program today offers more than twenty courses across the college. Students can receive a minor in Women's Studies or pursue a major through the college's interdisciplinary studies program. Teaching and learning Women's Studies in this environment has been a challenge because we encounter significant resistance to feminist ideas, but it has also been an opportunity for us as feminists to have a significant influence in an environment where we are critically needed. Below we will give both a faculty and a student perspective on Women's Studies in this "other" location. A Faculty Perspective At Berry, my background clearly defines me as different. I grew up in the Northeast, attended Yale University, where I was first introduced to Women's Studies, and received a J.D. and a Ph.D. in Women's Studies from Emory University. I came to Berry as the director of Women's Studies in 2001, with some trepidation after Berry denied tenure to the founder of the program. Teaching Women's Studies at Berry, I have often encountered a lack of understanding and even hostility to feminist ideas. For many students, the material is entirely new and revelatory. The learning curve is tremendous. The conservative background of many of my students has altered the kinds of discussions that are likely to occur in my classes and on campus and the kinds of issues that are likely to resonate with the students. For example, the unit on religion in my introductory class at Emory fell flat, whereas the same issue fires up my Berry students, who often have grown up in fundamentalist churches or communities that have [End Page 192] very restrictive ideas about what is appropriate for women. Questioning these restrictions can be very threatening but also revolutionary for those willing to think through the issues. It has taken me a while to understand my students and to make adjustments so that I can effectively reach them. Students who are already feminist are sometimes frustrated with conservative students in the class so I have to find ways to engage all students and negotiate these differences. The strong Christian fundamentalist environment at Berry means that to declare a women's studies minor, or even to take a women's studies class, is a political act. Other students find Women's Studies very threatening and are sometimes explicitly hostile to Women's Studies (for example, defacing or tearing down posters). Not only are students conservative, but the faculty and staff are as well. Communicating feminism to them also can be a challenge. When I did a presentation on the history of abortion in the United States, not a student but a staff member raised his hand and asked me a question in which he described abortion as murder. A recently retired member of the chemistry department was a creationist, and there is a psychology faculty member who teaches that homosexuality is a mental disorder. More insidious, however, is the general apathy among the faculty about issues of feminist concern. For example, when the board of trustees denied group status to a gay and lesbian group, few...

Women as Learners: The Significance of Gender in Adult Learning (review)

Reviewed by: Women as Learners: The Significance of Gender in Adult Learning Melanie J. Guentzel Women as Learners: The Significance of Gender in Adult Learning Elisabeth Hayes and Daniele D. Flannery San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000, 304 pages, $38.00 (hardcover) In Women as Learners the authors have collected, analyzed, and synthesized studies focused on women's narrative and personal stories about learning. Their work identifies themes in the literature and moves the reader through the theoretical to the practical and concludes with a perspective about what we still need to learn. This book builds on the work of scholars such as Carol Gilligan (e.g., In a Different Voice, 1982) who questioned the application of research on men to the experience of women and on the exploration of women's learning that Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule (1986) began with Women's Ways of Knowing. The authors identified four purposes for writing Women as Learners including: assembling in one place knowledge about women and their learning; placing women's learning experiences in the contexts where women live; promoting an understanding of women's diversity; and finally to make recommendations, on the basis of critical appraisal of the existing literature, for future research and practice. This review will explore the theoretical framework of the book, summarize the contents, and offer a critique of the book. The analysis of the literature in Women as Learnersoccurs within a post-structural feminist framework, which sets the stage for looking at diverse women in a variety of learning settings. The four basic tenets underlying the post-structural feminist framework are: the intersection of gender with other systems of oppression and privilege as essential to the construction of self; multiple versions of truth and reality based in personal experience; shifting identities within different social structures; and questioning binary opposites, such as the rational and the affective (Tisdell, 2000). For student affairs professionals comfortable with the premise that learning takes place in many contexts, that broad generalizations about a population can be a guide but not a rule, and that race, class, and gender are integral to identity development and learning, post-structural feminism is not such a stretch. In the first chapter, "The Kaleidoscope" the authors place themselves in the research. Hayes and Flannery discuss their professional roles as professors of adult education and their interest in the learning of adult women in a variety of contexts. They characterize themselves as feminists, and explain three broad categories of feminism: psychological, structural, and post-structural, and identify the lens they used to interpret and make meaning of the literature. This chapter addresses the challenges the authors faced in gathering literature on women's learning, how they finally came to focus on women's narrative and personal stories of learning, and the themes identified in the book. Finally, the authors discuss how the kaleidoscope provides visual imagery for their research. In the next four chapters Hayes and Flannery identify and elaborate on common themes in research on women. These chapters [End Page 578] draw heavily on Belenky et al's (1986) Women's Ways of Knowing and essays included in Goldberger, Tarule, Clinchy, and Belenky's (1996) Knowledge, Difference and Power: Essays Inspired by Women's Ways of Knowing. Chapter two addresses the social contexts in which women's learning occurs, and how every social setting can be a text from which people learn about themselves and relationships with others. The first setting discussed is formal education and its various elements, curricula, interpersonal interactions, and institutional culture. Other settings described include the workplace, the home and family, and the community. Identity, self-esteem, and their connections with women's learning are the topics of chapter three. This chapter offers definitions of self-esteem and identity, broad theories on identity formation, the development of gendered identities and the effects of race and class on identity development. Chapter four considers the concept of voice, another familiar topic for readers of research on women. A frequent metaphor used in writing by and about women, voice is discussed in three commonly used meanings, voice as talk, voice as identity, and voice as power. The connections of voice to learning, the...

Assessing power issues in Canadian and Jamaican women's experiences in learning via distance in higher education

This paper examines a qualitative research study which examines the experiences of ten Jamaican and Canadian women engaged in learning via distance in a graduate adult education program. Using a critical feminist perspective, three power issues emerged as topics for discussion that are important for distance educators in higher education to take into consideration. These are some of the ethical and practical challenges of teaching internationally and cross‐culturally, gender differences in power relationships in the distance learning classroom, and the impact of relationships in the homeplace and how this may affect women's learning experiences.

Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women by Elissa B. Weaver (review)

MLR, 99.3, 2004 803 Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women. By Elissa B. Weaver. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2002. xiii + 304pp. ?45. ISBN 0-521-55082-3. Elissa Weaver's pioneering study is a much-needed work that throws light on an almost completely unexplored area of literary and historical research. In a clear and enj oyable style, Weaver takes the reader through the history of Tuscan convent theatre between the mid-fifteenth and the mid-seventeenth centuries. She shows that nuns were engaged in many cultural and artistic activities, including commissioning, writ? ing, and performing theatrical representations that took place in the closed spaces of their convents. She examines the major developments in the genres of convent theatrical production?mainly sacre rappresentazioni, spiritual comedies, and some farces?and illustrates how convent theatre dealt with a variety of topics: lives of saints and virgin martyrs, episodes from the holy scriptures, stories of women who had unhappy marriages and took the vows. These stories were deemed appropri? ate and interesting for the convent audience and some female external associates. Drawing on a corpus of over fiftytexts, mostly unpublished and including anonymous and undated works, she points out the increasing interest in publishing convent plays throughout the seventeenth century. Although Weaver stresses that not all con? vent authors possessed literary talent or professional ability, we do learn about many well-known, and some less-known, nun playwrights, such as Antonia Tanini Pulci, Raffaella de Sernigi, Beatrice del Sera, Maria Clemente Ruoti, and Annalena Odoaldi. One of the most important aspects of this book is that it highlights the specificity of convent theatre and, at the same time, its relevance to and exchanges with the sur? rounding secular world. The nuns' theatrical tradition needs to be understood within the circumscribed context in which it was born: it owed its existence to the female monastic community's need for a 'feminine subculture'. Indeed, convent plays held a primary function in offeringthe nuns 'good fun [. . .] so they may improve them? selves' (p. 62) and promoting their spiritual and literary education, as well as being formidable antidotes against the boredom of cloistered life. But this literary tradi? tion was in close touch with wider society. Convent theatre followed the mainstream genres of society outside, borrowed and adapted texts, and gained inspiration from the literarycommunity beyond the cloister. Furthermore, Weaver emphasizes that the audience of convent plays included townswomen (female relatives and friends), and rarely men, who shared this theatrical culture with the nuns. In debatingthe meaning of convent theatre and its connections with early modern society, she goes as far as offering an assessment of its place in the history of theatrical writing. Indeed, she suggests that the nuns' theatrical tradition may have been an important model forthe Jesuits, in their effortto make theatre a crucial part of their educational programme for the young male members of the European elites. Weaver's research has the further merit and originality of paying attention to the history of material culture and the circumstances of the performances. Her book provides many practical details of how performances were organized: their timing (Christmas, carnival, convent celebrations), the invitations posted up in the nuns' rooms informing them of the time and place of the performances, the props and cos? tumes used, stage installations, and sometimes the areas where they performed, such as the cloister loggia, or the courtyard. One can fully appreciate how nuns managed to express their creativity and benefit from theatre, in spite ofthe obvious limitations of their physical segregation. Perhaps the only slight disappointment is the concluding chapter, on convent theatre beyond Tuscany. Here Weaver limits herself to mentioning some Italian and European examples, acknowledging that cloistered nuns propagated the theatrical tradition through the Catholic Church (i.e. their spiritual directors and confessors) 804 Reviews and their families, but without fully explaining exactly how they did this. This weak? ness apart, Spiritual Fun remains a wonderful example of how to use literature and history to understand early modern theatre, as well as the gendered dimension of the ltalian cultural tradition. University of Birmingham Silvia Evangelisti Lafigura della donna nel teatro di Eduardo...

Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women

Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women

A gaggle of raging grannies: the empowerment of older Canadian women through social activism

This article explores a particular expression of social activism by older Canadian women to consider its implications for later life learning. ‘Older women’, despite their heterogeneity, have tended to be pathologized as a part of the ‘problem’ of ageing and languishing welfare societies—i.e. stereotyped as passive recipients of welfare and healthcare services. Yet, they can also be seen as part of the ‘answer’ to the challenges societies like Canada face. Given the combination of a greying population and the growing tide of citizens' participatory democracy, it is timely and important to shed light on older women's social activism. Based on document analysis and fieldwork with the Raging Grannies in Canada, this qualitative case study examines the influence of activism on women's later life learning and development from an interdisciplinary perspective including adult development, critical gerontology, women's studies and psychodrama. Analysis focuses on the Grannies' motivations, the strategies they employ in their activities and the process of learning and changes they say they undergo. Themes emerging from document analysis, interviews and participant observation of 15 Grannies in Ontario are divided into three categories: (1) ‘Raging Grannies’ as a self‐defined social role; (2) the Grannies' dual‐layered mask strategies; and (3) their collective identity and sense of empowerment. These do much to explain the successes of Raging Grannies' activism as a social movement, which fosters older women's creative energy, critical awareness and self‐assurance despite their physical and psychological problems in later life. Implications of the Raging Grannies' movement help us reconsider current trends in later life learning, which tend overlook the needs and abilities of women in the third age.

Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women by Elissa B. Weaver (review)

Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women by Elissa B. Weaver (review)

The Influence of Gender-Related Beliefs and Conceptions of Ability on Women Learning the Hockey Wrist Shot

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of beliefs about gender appropriateness and conceptions of ability on perceived and actual competence and patterns of behavior during practice of the hockey wrist shot. Sixty-eight undergraduate women formed four treatment conditions based on their beliefs about gender appropriateness and conceptions of ability. Four teachers taught across the treatment conditions for a total of 16 learning groups. Data were collected through a three-part questionnaire and from audio-video taping of the entire episode to ascertain the participants' competency beliefs, effort, and performance. Gender appropriateness impacted the participants' perceptions of competence and actual performance in the study, while beliefs about conceptions of ability did not produce a significant difference. This study reaffirms that educators must work diligently to combat the stereotypical beliefs many hold with respect to the gender appropriateness of physical activities.

Postpartum Interviews

Interview setting and technique presumably alter efficacy of the postpartum interview. It is commonly believed that interviews are most effective when both parties are positioned at the same physical level. To test the hypothesis that women's satisfaction and learning are improved when postpartum visits are conducted by pediatricians sitting in a chair rather than standing and are further improved when female pediatricians sit on the mother's bed. Randomized double-blind study. University hospital newborn nursery. Seventy-five mothers on their first postpartum day. Patients' postpartum interviews were conducted by physicians assigned randomly to (1) sitting on the edge of the bed near the mother's feet, (2) sitting in a chair near the side of the bed, or (3) standing at the foot of the bed. Within 60 minutes of completing the interview, an investigator (B.S.W.), blinded to physician position, asked each mother questions related to her satisfaction with the interview and the information that she was given. Differences among position groups were compared by means of 1-way analysis of variance or Kruskal-Wallis, chi2, or Fisher exact tests; P<.05 was considered statistically significant. Potential confounding factors were similar among patients assigned to each of the 3 interview positions. The estimated duration of the interviews, the degree of satisfaction, and information retention were similar in each group. Physicians need not make special efforts to conduct postpartum interviews in a seated position.