Sports, with their rules and expectations, are a microcosm of society. Whether one plays on grass or on pavement, the risk of a fall is not nearly as serious as the risk of not knowing how to behave, or not contributing to the team. Most important, it is not the almighty adults who keep an eye on you and on whom you keep an eye; it is your peers and equals!

In the beginning are simple rules about which body parts may touch the ball and what kind of contact with other players is within bounds. Gradually the rules become more complex and precise, until one day an older boy shouts "offside" during a promising offensive - and the most frustrating regulation of all is introduced. In addition to obeying these rules, you learn to uphold expectations and obligations. On the one hand, you are not meant to simply stand around and take it easy. On the other hand, you should not try to outshine your pals. Instead of shooting at the goal from an impossible angle, for instance, you are supposed to pass the ball to a teammate who may end up triumphant. He, in turn, is expected to acknowledge your assistance.

This knowledge is acquired via endless debates about what one did versus what one should have done. And even if the game is not halted for a particular violation, it is made perfectly clear that the disadvantaged team has been generous - a gesture to be recalled as soon as the other team fusses over some minor infraction.

Boys seem to enjoy these legal battles every bit as much as the game itself, as observed in 1972 by Janet Lever in a now-classic study of children's games in Connecticut. Lever found that girls tend to play in smaller groups, and less competitively, than boys. Their games are considerably shorter, partly because girls are not as good as boys at resolving disputes. Based on observations and interviews, Lever contrasted the two sets of attitudes toward disagreement: "Boys were seen quarreling all the time, but not once was a game terminated because of a quarrel, and no game was interrupted for more than seven minutes." In contrast "Most girls claimed that when a quarrel begins, the game breaks up, and little effort is made to resolve the problem."

Following in the footsteps of the famous Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, who first analyzed the moral lessons derived from rule-bounded games, Lever concluded that boys' games offer better preparation than girls' games for the adjudication of disputes, respect for rules, leadership, and the pursuit of collective goals. With jump rope and hopscotch involving turn-taking rather than contest, and with girls playing in pairs or trios of close friends rather than in larger groups, the typical girls' games seem to serve as a training ground for delicate socioemotional skills. Lever saw these skills as valuable mainly for future dating and marriage, not as part of moral development.

Certainly Carol Gilligan has another interpretation. In In a Different Voice the American psychologist claims that female moral commitment is rooted in attachment, intimacy, and responsibility for the other, whereas male commitment is oriented to rights, rules, and authority. For simplicity, let us call these types sympathy-based morality and rule-based morality. Gilligan makes the point that although human morality is based on both rules and sympathy, men and women reach an integration of the two via different routes. For this reason, the sensitivity skills developed in girls' games may be as morally relevant as the boys' experience with conflict resolution and fair play.

Instead of standing in awe before principles higher than themselves, women have a rather down-to-earth approach to the dilemmas of moral judgment presented by researchers. Gilligan asked her subjects how they would resolve an imaginary situation in which the interests of various persons collided. Female subjects wanted to know all sorts of missing details concerning the nature of these hypothetical people - where they lived, how they were interconnected, and so on. They ended up with moral solutions tailored to these people's needs based on the logic of social relationships rather than abstract principles.