Gender, Globalization, and Democratization

Education, Outreach, and Capacity Building

The education and outreach element of the Research Programme's work involves exploring the use of the internet for international distance learning purposes, developing course curricula and workshops on the topics of globalization, gender, and democratization, collecting and exchanging relevant syllabi and bibliographies from scholars around the world, experimenting with and exploring the possibilities of translation ( initially English/Spanish ) for course materials and other communications. It also involves teaching exchanges, organizing conferences and workshops that reach students and the public, and making public presentations. We are also interested in expanding our contacts to other countries and other ISSC networks. The Research Programme has established a WEBPAGE at www.isscggd.org.

Curriculum Development

To date, members of the Research Programme have developed courses on "The Politics of Globalization," "Gender and Trade," "Gender, Globalization and Democratization" " Gender and Development.," "Transnational Feminisms," "Neoliberalism and its Impact in Comparative Perspective." Most of these have been established as web assisted courses. Other topics for future courses or modules include: "Gender and Migration," "Global Finance and Gender," " Sexual Trafficking and Human Security." Members of the programme have been experimenting with various web-based distance learning programs such as Blackboard and WebCT.

Teaching Exchanges

Our group finds teaching exchanges to be extremely stimulating and worthwhile and has tried to make them happen whenever possible. We are constantly looking for opportunities that will finance short term teaching visits, as these are the most practical for our members. To date, we have arranged teaching exchanges between Mexico and Canada, between the Netherlands and the United States, between New Zealand and the United States; and between Mexico and the United States.

Outreach Activities

The Research Programme has a strong interest in expanding our outreach in our local environments as well as to other scholars, especially to those from the majority world. To this end, we have involved scholars from Africa, from Korea, from India, from Central America, and from China in our activities. We have and will continue to encourage participation from young scholars and graduate students not only from all regions in the world, but particularly in our own local and regional meetings. We make a concerted effort to hold joint international meetings with a variety of relevant international disciplines. We try to locate, invite, and fund scholars (especially young scholars) from countries or regions that are not represented by our membership. We encourage any scholars interested in participating in our activities to contact the Chair of the ISSC-GGD, Dr. Jane Bayes at jbayes@csun.edu.

GGD Network Building

One of the projects of the ISSC-GGD is to build a network of links and communication and cooperation between university departments, centers, institutes and non governmental organizations that are concerned with issues of gender, globalization, and democratization. To date, we have links between five such entities.

1. Center for American Women in Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University, USA- www.camp.rutgers.edu - contact Dr. Mary Hawkesworth
2. Institute of Gender Globalization and Democracy at California State University, Northridge, USA - www.iggd.org - contact Dr. Jane Bayes
3. PROJEKTA in Suriname -
4. Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics, Queen's University Belfast, Ireland www.qub.ac.uk/camp - contact Dr. Yvonne Galligan
5. Center for Women and Democracy, University of Washington USA - depts.washington.edu/cwd/contact.shtml - contact Dr. Nancy Hartsock

Leadership Training for Women

In its education and capacity building activities, the research programme attempts to identify best practices leadership training programs and to disseminate such information as widely as possible. Two of the five centers listed above run leadership training programs for women. The Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics in Ireland is about to embark on such a program. The webpages for CAWP at Rutgers and the Center for Women and Democracy both offer extensive resources on women and leadership training. The ISSC-GGD research program on Women and Leadership under the direction of Dr. Gunnel Gustafsson of Sweden is closely associated with this kind of education and capacity building activity.

Access to Education for Women

One of the issues critical to capacity building and democratization is access to education for women in the majority world. Many obstacles limit the opportunities for education of any kind for women in the majority world. While the female "child's" access to schooling in the early years is recognized as important, the higher education of women in majority world countries is critical to the development of women's capacity for leadership and for "thicker" rather than "thinner" democratic practices. Dr. Nancy Russo of the United States is interested in drawing on international psychology meetings and networks to expand the research programme's outreach and capacity building activities in this arena.