Coming of Age in Chapin
By E. Mendelsohn
This past week in psychology class, Chapin students shared presentations on four major psychological figureheads, Carl Jung, Melanie Klein, Margaret Mead and Albert Bandura. The information on the psychologists’ lives and work led to discussions of the students’ perspectives on society and psyche. The Upper School girls enrolled in this elective enjoyed analyzing one another’s dreams using techniques derivative of Jung, but they most immediately identified with Margaret Mead’s studies of gender and culture.
Margaret Mead was born in Philadelphia on December 18, 1901. After graduating from Barnard, she traveled to the South Pacific and studied gender roles and socialization in different remote cultures. She published her conclusion, that “the roles of men and women are decided by environment and not by biological trait,” in her book Coming of Age in Samoa.
Now almost 80 years later, young women are still examining the world through Mead’s lens. The girls commented on the freedom that Chapin’s single-sex environment gives them to explore their identity as intellectuals and leaders outside the stereotypically passive role assigned to women. One student described girls in her neighborhood as “more subordinate” than those at Chapin. Another student added, “Society doesn't come naturally. It doesn't have to be that way just because it is that way now.”
As well as providing students with a link to their past, the psychology presentation also provided them with tools for their future. Each of the four groups used technology, in the form of flawlessly executed PowerPoint presentations, to illustrate and outline the information they provided to the rest of the class. For these young girls at Chapin, the future is wide open.
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