chosen to investigate Keefer and Olson’s (1995) claim.The interviews were then analysed using Brown et al’s., (1990) Reading Guide proposed in their article Reading Narratives of Conflict and Choice for Self and Moral Voices: A Relational Method. 2.Literature Review.Gilligans’s claims in her 1982 book In a different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. has received heavy criticism from a number of researchers over the years. Walker et al. (1987) challenge the empirical validity of her theory. They criticize her use of anecdotal data and her original (1977) study, which was limited to female participants and a single context dilemma (i.e. abortion). Nails (1983) also reproaches Gilligan for her selective and biased analysis of data. Oser and Alhof (1994) write that Gilligan’s empirical approach lacks the necessary ‘theoretical foundation as well as philosophical stringency’ (Cited in Luedecke et al., 1998, p.605) Ford and Lowery (1986) conducted a study in which undergraduate college students were asked to describe a moral conflict, read a paragraph outlining the care/justice orientations and then asked to rate the extent to which they had used these orientation in thinking about their chosen conflict. Results of this study did show that men and women have a tendency to differ in the predicted directions in the use of justice and care, but these differences were very small and statistically insignificant.Nunner-Winkler (1994) reviews a number of studies (130). Most studies found no gender differences and when differences were present, they were confounded with a number of other main effect variables (e.g. level of education and occupation). Research by Walker, (1989) and Walker et al., (1987) in a sample of participants which ages ranging from 5-63 years found sex-related differences only in adults in real-life generated dilemmas. Thus providing evidence for Keefer and Olson̵...
