In 1995, the Ford Foundation announced a new initiative in curriculum integration designed to strengthen links between women's studies and international studies in higher education. The functions of the programs are to assist scholars working to internationalize the content of women's studies courses in the U.S., bring together gender perspectives to international and area studies, and to fostor collaboration between U.S. and international scholars and institutions, particularly in developing countries.
The Ford Foundation invited centers for research on women to participate in a new competititve grants program. The program encouraged women's studies, area studies, and international studies programs to produce joint proposals designed to:
Twelve projects were funded under this initiative. The University of California at Berkeley project "International Gender Systems in Comparative Perspective" strives to promote the incorporation of gender issues into area studies and general undergraduate education, and to enhance comparative and international research on the Berkeley campus by reciprocally linking the programmatic activities of the Institute of International Studies with the Women's Studies Department and the Beatrice M. Bain Research Group.
The Berkeley project covers three areas: faculty teaching, curriculum development, and training for faculty and doctoral students. The faculty teaching project engages faculty in intensive discussion and study in an effort to promote the integration of gender into course content and the training of undergraduates in existing area and international studies courses. Resources are made available to faculty to teach jointly existing classes with women's studies scholars and thus simultaneously contribute to both a deepening of sholarly commitment to comparative gender studies and to the incorporation of gender and comparative women's studies into core curriculum.
In curriculum development, we plan a series of interventions, including annual conferences and monthly colloquia, to expose faculty to women's studies scholars and resources for teaching gender issues. In the area of training for faculty and doctoral students, we are designing activities using existing institutions and programs on the Berkeley campus to enhance the gender component in doctoral areas.
Doctoral research will be augmented by yearly workshops on gender issues within comparative international perspectives through the International and Area Studies doctoral workshop program. Faculty-student gender working groups will promote comparative research in gender issues through existing structures provided by the Townsend Humanitites Center, the Institute of International Studies, and the Beatrice Bain Research Group.
For more information on this project, please contact:
Norma Alarcon
Professor of Ethnic/Chicano Studies
Director, Beatrice M. Bain Research Group
2539 Channing Way, Rm. 21
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
email: bbrg@uclink.berkeley.edu
Irene Tinker
Professor, City and Regional Planning, Women's Studies
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
email: tinker@socrates.berkeley.edu
Michael Watts
Professor of Geography
Director, Institute of International Studies
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/
215 Moses Hall, #2308
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
email: mwatts@socrates.berkeley.edu
