Acknowledgments

      First and foremost, I wish to express my gratitude to the adolescents who were willing to share their stories with me and my colleagues. Without their patience, cooperation, and wisdom, this book would not have been written. I am also grateful to the Henry Murray Research Center at Radcliffe College for financial support of this project.

      My deepest appreciation extends to my graduate school mentor and friend Carol Gilligan, whose teachings are the inspiration for my research. Carol’s intellectual guidance and vision have provided me with the essential tools with which to pursue my own research questions. There have also been numerous friends, colleagues, former teachers, and students who have graciously read this book and provided me with constructive criticism, wonderful insights, and much encouragement. These people include Elizabeth Abrams, Charles Baraw, Elizabeth Chin, Michelle Fine, JoEllen Fisherkeller, Monica Garcia, Patricia Harmon, Stuart Hauser, Laura Maciuika, Allison Morell, Meg Turner, and Janie Ward. Charles Baraw’s extremely close reading of this book was especially helpful. I also want to extend a special thanks to Helena Stauber and Michael Nakkula for interviewing many of the adolescents and for their years of support and intellectual challenge. The project would not have been possible without them. Thank you as well to Jamie Aronson and Stacy Scott for helping to conduct the interviews, to Madeline Alers for taking the photos that grace the cover of this book, and to Annie Rogers whose remarkable work on “ordinary courage” among girls was the inspiration for the title of this book and for the substance of some of the chapters.

      Tim Bartlett, my editor at New York University Press, made astute