For over a century, psychologists have described adolescence as a time of heightened psychological risk for girls. This article explores a relational impasse or crisis of connection that we have observed in girls' lives at adolescence by tracing through time the thoughts and feelings of two 12-year-old girls who were interviewed as part of a 5-year longitudinal study of girls' psychological development. Using a voice-centered relational method, we join the experiences of struggle and resistance at this developmental juncture with the problems that have been seen as central to the psychology of women.

As theories of developmental psychology continue to define educational goals and practice, it has become imperative for educators and researchers to scrutinize not only the underlying assumptions of such theories but also the model of adulthood toward which they point. Carol Gilligan examines the limitations of several theories,most notably Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development, and concludes that developmental theory has not given adequate expression to the concerns and experience of women. Through a review of psychological and literary sources, she illustrates the feminine construction of reality. From her own research data, interviews with women contemplating abortion, she then derives an alternative sequence for the development of women's moral judgments. Finally, she argues for an expanded conception of adulthood that would result from the integration of the "feminine voice" into developmental theory.

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Drawing on literary and psychological sources, Carol Gilligan documents the way in which theories of the life cycle, by taking for their model the lives of men, have failed to account for the experience of women. Arguing that this bias has promoted a concern with autonomy and achievement at the expense of attachment and intimacy, she suggests that systematic attention to women's lives, in both theory and research, will allow an integration of these concerns into a more balanced conception of human development.

Hearing the difference between a patriarchal voice and a relational voice defines a paradigm shift: a change in the conception of the human world. Theorizing connection as primary and fundamental in human lifeWhen I began the work that led to Zn a Different Voice (1982), the framework was invisible. To study psychology at that time was like seeing a picture without seeing the frame, and the picture of the human world had become so large and allencompassing that it looked like reality or a rnirror of reality, rather than a representation. It was starling then to discover that women for the most part were not included in research on psychological development, or when included were marginalized or interpreted within a theoretical bias where the child and the adult were assumed to be male and the male was taken as the norm.* Este texto corresponde al original que con el mismo titulo se publicó en Hypatia, 10 (2), 1995. Reproducimos el texto con la autorización de la autora y de la editorial Indiana University Press. Correo electrónico: gilligan@juris.law.nyu.edu