Communications, Culture & Society

The projects that SIROW undertakes either focus on women and gender in the Southwest and the Mexico-U.S. border region from a multicultural perspective, or are developed because they interest scholars in the region.  They are divided into the following topics categories:
 

Projects

• Protecting Women's Rights at the Border
• Report on Women in Immigration Detention Facilities in Arizona
• Tucson Women Workers' Project

• Nontraditional Recruitment and Retention Program for Secondary Schools

• Partners in Change: Solutions to Women's Poverty in Southern Arizona
• Pima County Domestic Violence Multi-Disciplinary Collaboration

• HerStory to Health
• Mujer Sana - Healthy Woman HIV, STD, TB, and Hepatitis B + C Drug Treatment Enhancement for Women
• Project DAP (Determining Another Path)

• Family Drug Court Services with Enhanced Trauma Treatment
• Las Rosas: A Recovery-Oriented Support Systems Approach for Adolescent Girls
• Own Yourself
• Pima County Family Drug Court Evaluation
• Proyecto de las Mariposas
• Recover2gether
• Sleep Disorders Among Adolescent Substance Users

• Reading Our World
• Sowing the Seeds: Promoting the Humanities in our Communities

• Women in Science and Engineering

Ruiz B., Stevens, S., Fuhriman, J., Bogart, J., & Korchmaros, J. 2009. "A juvenile drug court model in southern Arizona: Substance abuse, deliquency, and sexual risk outcomes by gender and race/ethnicity." Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. 

Ruiz, B., Hedges, K., Greene, A., Arnold, A., Colonna, H., Stevens, S., Andrade, R., & O'Neill, S. 2009. "School and community counseling collaboration: A promising approach to address youth substance abuse." School Counseling Research and Practice.

Rabin, N. 2009. Unseen prisoners: A report on women in immigration detention facilities in Arizona. University of Arizona, SIROW.

Get Involved!

SIROW is open to those who want to make a difference in the lives of women and families through collaborative and innovative research and the integration of new knowledge into policy and practice.

Feminist Thought and Scholarship
Research Interest Groups. Research Interest Groups (RIG) organized by CSWS foster collaboration between scholars at the university. Faculty, graduate students, and community members participate in programs and events. RIGs are designed to facilitate collaborative research; create support groups for the preparation of grant proposals; build better connections between scholars and community activists; and generate opportunities for cross-disciplinary dialogue among scholars.

Women of Color Project
CSWS was awarded a Ford Foundation grant in March 2008 from the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW). “Diversifying the Leadership of Women’s Research Centers,” was meant to promote the leadership of women of color from historically underrepresented groups in the United States within NCRW and within its women’s research, policy, and advocacy member centers. CSWS and the UO Office of the Vice President for Research provided matching funds.

Charise Cheney, associate professor, UO Department of Ethnic Studies, continues as the 2012-13 coordinator of the CSWS Women of Color Project. Cheney’s research interests include African-American popular and political cultures, black nationalist ideologies and practices, and gender and sexuality. She is the author of Brothers Gonna Work It Out: Sexual Politics in the Golden Age of Rap Nationalism (New York: New York University Press, 2005) and is currently working on a book about black resistance to school desegregation in Topeka, Kansas in the decade before Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. She earned her PhD at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.

Fembot Project
Designed to re-imagine academic writing and research, the Fembot Project participates in the ongoing revolution in academic publishing, taking seriously the advice of scholars to democratize our publications by embracing open access, open source publications. The Fembot Project centrally includes a new journal—Ada: Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology—that will be broadly accessible, both in terms of physical access and in terms of its content. The Fembot website (http://fembotcollective.org/) comprises three overlapping projects: Ada, Laundry Day, and a professional clearinghouse.

For more information, contact Carol Stabile, Director, CSWS, cstabile@uoregon.edu

Women Writers Project

This group organized MemoirFest, the first annual CSWS Women Writers Symposium, held May 12, 2012. The second annual CSWS Women Writers Symposium: Common Ground, will be held over Mother’s Day weekend 2013. The Women Writers Project (http://csws.uoregon.edu/?page_id=10220) seeks to foster and enhance opportunities for women writers on campus, in the community, and throughout the Pacific Northwest; to bring distinct voices of published women writers to campus; and to support the work of creative writing by bringing together writers from different disciplines.

For more information, contact coordinator Alice Evans at alicee@uoregon.edu

2012 CSWS Annual Review

Available online here, this 28-page publication includes these highlights:

• “The Rise and Fall of The Goldbergs,” by Carol Stabile, director, CSWS, and professor, SOJC and women’s and gender studies — Despite widespread support as evidenced through fan mail, this popular show by Jewish writer Gertrude Berg was ultimately squelched by anti-communist activists.
• “Witnessing in the Americas: A Conversation with Gabriela Martínez,” documentary filmmaker, SOJC associate professor, and the new associate director of CSWS.
• “We Are the Face of Oaxaca: Testimony and Social Movements,” by Lynn Stephen,  professor of anthropology and director of the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies — CSWS-funded research culminates in innovative book.
• Research articles by UO scholars addressing the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields, rural gentrification and immigrant-centered labor, strategies of silence in American women’s poetry, and more.

CSWS Research Matters is published three times yearly. Each two-page article is written by a UO faculty member whose research has been supported by CSWS. Available online here, the most recent issues include:

• 2012, Fall: “Touchstones, Touchscreens and Timeless Tall Tales: A Feminist Analysis of Communication Practice in Exhibitions,” by Phaedra Livingstone, assistant professor, University of Oregon, Arts and Administration Program (AAD) School of Architecture & Allied Arts (A&AA) and coordinator, Museum Studies
• 2012, Spring: “Thinking Through a Research Trajectory, From Hollywood Latinas to Hair/Style” by Priscilla Peña Ovalle, associate professor, Department of English & associate director, Cinema Studies
• 2012, Winter: “Partner Violence and Girls’ Educational and Vocational Development” by Krista M. Chronister, associate professor, College of Education, Counseling Psychology Program
• 2011, Fall: “Why Oklahoma? All-Black Towns and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Indian Territory” by Melissa H. Stuckey, assistant professor, Department of History

Feminist Thought and Scholarship

Sandra Morgen; Joan Acker; Jill Weigt. 2010.Stretched Thin: Poor Families, Welfare Work, and Welfare Reform. Cornell University Press.

Pascoe, Peggy. 2009. What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America. Oxford.

Reis, Elizabeth. 2009. Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Lynn Fujiwara. 2008. Mothers without Citizenship: Asian Immigrant Families and the Consequences of Welfare Reform. University of Minnesota Press.

Microfinance

Lamia Karim, 2011. Microfinance and Its Discontents: Women in Debt in Bangladesh. University of Minnesota Press. Lamia Karim is the associate director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society and an associate professor in the University of Oregon Department of Anthropology.

Grants and Fellowships

The Center for the Study of Women in Society maintains a number of grant programs to support the work initiated by University of Oregon faculty, staff (with the appropriate end degrees), and graduate students. By providing these highly competitive grants and fellowships, CSWS consistently has supported many important research projects at various stages of development and enriched programs in all sectors of the university. The Center has offered research funding to faculty and graduate students at the University of Oregon for more than 25 consecutive years.

For more details visit: 

http://csws.uoregon.edu/?page_id=16

Policy Partnerships

APC's Policy Partnership Program is the centerpiece of its mission to apply research in the service of social change. APC sponsors collaborations between academic researchers and organizations that work on women and family policy and programs.

The goals of the Policy Partnership Program are:

1. To move research out of the "ivory tower" and into the hands of policy makers, advocates, and service providers

2. To provide organizations with a wide knowledge base to inform their work and strengthen their programs

3. To give graduate and undergraduate students experience with applied research and expose them to organizations working for change

Research Partnerships. Penn researchers work closely with organizations to design and conduct research projects that improve the organizations' work as advocates and service-providers. Penn graduate students are employed as research assistants in order to gain valuable experience and help finance their graduate training. Undergraduates also work as research assistants on Partnership projects.

Internship and Service Learning Partnerships. Students from across the University intern in local organizations addressing gender issues and take seminar courses that feature internship and research projects with policy partners. Alumni/ae interested in women's issues are enlisted as mentors and advisors to students and policy partners. The hands-on learning experience provides needed resources to community groups, and encourages students to explore careers in the public and non-profit sectors.

Some recent policy partnerships include:

Women's Way 25. "A Change of Pace: Accelerating Women's Progress." A major report that documents women's progress toward economic equality over the past 25 years, highlights remaining inequalities, explains the reasons for their persistence, and proposes specific strategies for change to accelerate the pace of women's progress.

Third Path Institute. "Gender and Work-Life Balance in the Professions" applies research and professional experience to design new templates for work in the professions that allow for better work-life balance. Phase one focuses on the legal profession and involves collaboration with the Penn Law School, the Wharton School, and Philadelphia Flex-Time Lawyers.

Arab-American CDC. Working with middle schools in Philadelphia to develop leadership programs and curricula for Palestinian girls.

Research Fellows

APC hosts post-doctoral and senior scholars from around the world who are conducting research on women and gender.

Public Lectures and Fora

APC, in collaboration with Women's Studies, sponsors two major public addresses by prominent scholars, writers, and activists on current issues affecting women. APC also sponsors and co-sponsors numerous other public programs thoughout the year. Information on past and upcoming events is available at our website: or by calling the office at 215-898-8740.

Integrating Gender into a Penn Education

APC is actively involved in the core educational mission of the University. The Center:

1. Contributes to course offerings and curricular development focused on the role of gender in the lives and opportunities of both women and men

2. Involves students in research, policy-making, and community service

3. Funds graduate students doing research on women and gender

4. Supports undergraduate and graduate networks for exchanging ideas, presenting works-in-progress, and designing research and action projects

Feminist Thought and Scholarship

Diversity of Language and the Structure of Power Seminar. Designed for Penn faculty and graduate students, this seminar focuses on the use of language and the intersections of race, class, and gender. The current seminar theme is feminist theory and its contributions to key areas of contemporary research and critique of the humanities and social sciences.

Penn Mid-Atlantic Seminar for the Study of Women and Society. The seminar provides a forum for research on women and gender issues in the Delaware Valley. The seminar is an opportunity for faculty, graduate students, and professionals to convene around and discuss the latest research on women and gender in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, led by academics from around the country as well as from Penn.

The Women's Studies Program and the Alice Paul Center facilitate faculty research in several ways. Find out more here: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/wstudies/research/faculty/ Works-in-Progress Seminars * Global Gender Seminars * Affiliated Faculty GASWorks Workshops * Note that these seminars are for Penn faculty. The Women's Studies Program and the Alice Paul Center facilitate graduate research in several ways. Find out more here.

The F-Word: A Collection of Feminist Voices is a new literary journal created to fill the feminist void here at Penn. Our mission is to provide an outlet for writing or art pertaining to feminism (broadly defined as respect for all individuals regardless of gender or sexual affiliation). Please visit our website by clicking here.

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