Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years; A Scheme

Since its original publication in 1970, this landmark book by William Perry has remained the cornerstone of much of the student development research that followed. Using research conducted with Harvard undergraduates over a fifteen-year period, Perry derived an Anduring framework for characterizing student development--a scheme so accurate that it still informs and advances investigations into student development across gAnders and cultures.Drawing from firsthand accounts, Perry traces a path from students' adolescence into adulthood. His nine-stage model describes the steps that move students from a simplistic, categorical view of knowledge to a more complex, contextual view of the world and of themselves. Throughout this journey of cognitive development, Perry reveals that the most significant changes occur in forms in which people perceive their world rather than in the particulars of their attitudes and concerns. He shows ultimately that the nature of intellectual development is such that we should pay as much attention to the processes we use as to the content.In a new introduction to this classic work, Lee Knefelkamp--a close colleague of Perry's and a leading expert on college student development--evaluates the book's place in the literature of higher education. Knefelkamp explains how the Perry scheme has shaped current thinking about student development and discusses the most significant research that has since evolved from Perry's groundbreaking effort.Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years is a work that every current and future student services professional must have in their library.

WILLIAM G. PERRY, JR. was head of the Bureau of Study Counsel, an educational research unit, at Harvard University.