WGST
330
Global Feminisms:
Coming of Age in the World
Fall 2003
Schedule of Readings and Assignments
Academic Integrity Attendance Policy Grading policy
Introduction: Studying Gender, Studying Global Women's Movements
August 28: Who are we (and why a global feminisms approach to childhood)?
September 2: Workshop: Position papers on gender; linking gender and childhood
Readings assigned by peer educators for each group
September 4: Envisioning a global women's movement
Film: Beyond Beijing
Read the first three sections of Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Mission Statement, Global Framework, and Critical Areas of Concern) and browse Beijing +5
Explore this set of links explaining global feminisms. To prepare for class, do two things: (1) identify a term or concept that you would like us to explore in more depth in class. It may be something totally new to you, or it may be a concept about which you know quite a bit but believe is critical to the groundwork for our topic. (2) At the end of the links, you'll find a set of questions for reflection. Make an entry in your scrapbook based on one of these questions.
September 8: Beyond Beijing, Continued
To prepare for class: Spend at least two hours exploring any one or several of the resources listed on this link: Online materials and library reserve books. Bring to class good coherent notes on important data, quotes, questions you have; copies of images that seem important; anything that will help you put together a piece of the picture of what the issues are that women's movements are addressing and how they are doing it. In class you will add your piece of the puzzle to what others contribute as we build a picture of women's global activism.
The link is a selected list, but you should also feel free to explore other resources of interest to you--other books on the course reserve list, websites of other international women's organizations, or to pursue questions that come up as you investigate the listed materials.
Organize poster groups
September 11
No class; poster group meetings. Meet, share, analyze, and discuss your scrapbook entries. What connections (or contradictions) do you see among the entries?
Scrapbook entry: Women's Rights/Children's Lives. Of the materials you gathered to prepare for class on September 8, select one item (information about a particular form of inequality or oppression that women experience, about women's difficulties in a particular geographical area, about a grassroots or nongovernmental organization, a vision or goal) that has a direct impact on children. Even if your source doesn't say exactly how this issue affects children, speculate about the connection in your notes on the entry. How would it affect infants, young children, teens or young adults? Would the child's gender make a difference in how she or he is affected?
Women's Rights/Children's Rights
Poster project development: enriching the concept
September 15 - Beyond Beijing (Concluded)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) - read the introduction on the linked page, text of the convention, and browse the page of States Parties (those nations that have signed and/or ratified the convention).
September 18
Convention on the Rights of the Child - read the document, check out the status of ratification, and browse the home page of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (to get an idea what it is and what issues they're concerned with).
Take a look at the UN Special Session on Children, May 2002 website and read the One-Year Follow-Up Report
A basic definition of patriarchy
Scrapbook entry: Find something related to the human rights documents we're exploring that will enrich your group's poster on links between women's and children's issues. You may want to go into more depth, gathering factual data or personal testimonies about an issue you've already discovered. You may want to identify a person or an organization that is instrumental in addressing the issue. Or you may want to seek a deeper explanation of why the issue exists. Or you might find a different issue altogether that helps fill out the picture you've been developing. Bring the entries to class on Thursday.
Children's Rights, Kids as Activists
Poster project development: developing the captions
September 22 Caption essay due - e-mail to gray@tcnj.edu and your poster team members
September 25
Young Person's Guide to CRC and Sexual and Reproductive Health
Reading: Stand Up, Speak Out - explore this book, flip through the pages forwards and backwards, concentrate closely on pages that catch your interest, read it as if you were a child, read it as if you were a child somewhere else in the world, as if you were someone who had been to the Beijing Conference...think about the small pieces that make it up and about the project of making it as a whole.
Scrapbook entry: Choose an issue, an example of action, or an organization described in Stand Up, Speak Out, and find a way to illustrate it, adding a brief analysis.
Global Childhoods
Reading: Montgomery, Burr, and Woodhead, Changing Childhoods
September 29
Reading: Changing Childhoods, Chapter 1, "Adversities and Resilience"
Brainstorm scrapbook topics
October 2
Poster project development: finishing touches
Organize Study Circles
October 6-9 Poster exhibition, Bliss lobby
October 6 Submit scrapbook for feedback (you should have 5 entries)
Reading: Changing Childhoods, Chapter 2, "Children, Poverty, and Social Inequality"
October 9
Reading: Changing Childhoods, Chapter 3, "Achieving Health for Children"
October 13
Study circles: Chapters 2 and 3. Bring notes on your STUDY CIRCLE ROLES for these chapters to class.
October 16
Reading: Changing Childhoods, Chapter 4, "Children and Violence." Bring notes on your STUDY CIRCLE ROLE for this chapters to class.
October 20
Break
October 23
Mid-semester reflections - Bring written responses to class
October 27
Reading: Changing Childhoods, Chapter 5, "Intervening in Children's Lives"; Chapter 6, "Children's Participation in Society"
Sort out topics for study circle presentations
October 30
Readings: Between Cultures, Foreword, Introduction, and Chapter 1. Either in the book or on a separate sheet, write some brief notes in response to the questions on page 10. You'll develop these in two ways: (1) one scrapbook entry per week, starting November 1, illustrating your responses, (2) a short personal essay due December 2.
November 3
Readings: Between Cultures, Chapter 2. Again, take some notes in response to the "Notes to Myself" pages.
November 6
Readings: Between Cultures, Chapter 3. Write about the "Notes to Myself" questions.
Study circle presentations:
Differences Within Ourselves: Multiple Identities, Countering Hegemony
Other readings will be added as we explore the question: how can our understanding of our own multiple identities aid us in being agents of change?
November 10
Readings: Between Cultures, chapters 4 and 5.
Study circle presentations:
2:00 Jill Springstein and the E-Street Band - "Kids and Genocides"
3:00 Follow the Flow, "Children's Art"
November 13
Readings: Between Cultures, chapters 6 and 7.
Study circle presentations:
2:00 Lilith's Harlots, "Child Health Care"; The Lunchboxes: "Education in Zambia"
3:30 Femme Five, "Gender and Childhood"
November 17
2:00 Hell's Belles, "Child Neglect in Roumanian Orphanages"
3:30 Dark Ignorance, "Health Care"
Readings: Between Cultures, chapters 8 and 9.
November 20
KIDS BETWEEN CULTURES - Dr Cosmo Esq on Inuit children in northern Quebec
Links about Umiujaq:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/kiluutaq.school/home.htm
http://www.autochtones.com/en/first_peoples/umiujaq.html
http://www.nunavik-tourism.com/http://www.avataq.qc.ca/ang/reg/topo_02.html http://
www.nativetrail.com/en/first_peoples/umiujaq.html
Site made by the students of Umiujaq's school
Readings: Between Cultures, chapters 10, 11, 12.
November 24
Readings: Between Cultures, chapters 13, 14, 15.
November 27 - Thanksgiving
December 2
December 4 Final scrapbook due
AN ALLY IS...
December 10 Research project due