'Ms.' Hails Harvard Educator; Gilligan's Morals Work Cited

For her research in the fields of moral judgement and the difference between the sexes. "Ms." magazine has named associate professor of education Carol Gilligan its first "Woman of the Year."

"Gilligan's work has created a new appreciation for a previously uncatalogued female sensibility, as well as possibilities for a new understanding between the genders," the article announcing her selection in the January issue of the magazine said.

In a special issue, "How to Get to the Year 2000," the editors of "Ms." write that the problems confronting society, including the threat of nuclear war, are the result of a male dominated set of values and that, "survival may depend on a revolution in values: and one of the leaders of that revolution is Carol Gilligan."

Her 1982 book, "In a Different Voice", presents the idea that men see the world in terms of their autonomy while women view it in terms of connectedness and are threatened by too much isolation.

A spokesman for "Ms.", Shari Lifland, said yesterday Gilligan's name came up early in the search for the woman of the year and that they didn't consider many names past hers.

Gilligan could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Gilligan is currently studying girls' development through high school at the Emma Willard School, a private girls' school in Troy, New York.

"What Carol is doing is giving us the tools to learn how girls develop intellectually--on their own terms," Trudy J. Hammer, associate principal of the school, said in a prepared statement recently.

The study is being done because Gilligan found, "that so many major studies were based primarily on studies of boys or men," Nona M. Lyons, who is working on the project with Gilligan, said yesterday.

Preliminary results indicate, that women make moral choices differently from men, acting with regard to caring and relationships instead of issues of justice and right, Lyons added.

In addition to her 1982 book, Gilligan has written extensively on child psychology and development, education, and of morality.

A native of New York City, Gilligan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore College and holds an A.M. degree in clinical Psychology and a Ph.D. from Harvard.