Center for Women’s & Gender Studies

Call for Submissions: Special Issue of Society for International Education Journal Teachers College, Columbia University: Engaging with Difference, Gender and Sexuality in Education

Across such contexts as family, peers, school, religious communities, assumptions of gender and sexuality interact with organizational discourses and practices of race and social class (Stritikus & Nguyen, 2007). This view of differences suggests that within a social category, there could be as many differences as there are similarities. Yet these categories endure, and gender continues to be invoked as a static biological feature. The political, social and cultural contexts through which categories of difference are produced and maintained should be explored, particularly in sites of knowledge production and transmission. Historically, access to particular kinds of knowledge has been stratified by categories of difference such as race, social class, gender and sexuality. One way to understand the politics of knowledge is to acknowledge the social process of knowledge transmission in relation to gendered social relations. These relations are part of the discursive space for structuring notions of gender and sexuality. We are interested in expanding this discussion to understand some of the conditions through which institutions and individuals operate on the boundaries of seemingly clearly defined constructions of gender, sex and sexuality and engage with, produce, negotiate and resist knowledge. Specifically, we would like to explore how differences of gender, sex and sexuality operate and how they are established and maintained in local and international educational contexts. We are particularly interested in papers that interrupt normalized discourses, and engage with the fluidity and unsettledness of masculinities and femininities.

We welcome submissions that address any of the questions below:
- How is difference constructed in educational contexts (defined broadly and ranging from early childhood to postgraduate studies, including the informal education spaces)? How does difference operate? How is difference lived and experienced in/through gendered identities and sexuality/sexual subjectivities?
- Which differences are marked or left unmarked? How are hierarchies established? Why are particular differences maintained and others marginalized, and what are the related investments? In what situations do particular differences command more power, and when and how does this power vary with changing contexts?
- How do educational institutions, educators, administrators, and/or students structure difference? What is the role of formal and informal curriculum in the structuring difference?
- How and in what ways does difference constitute students and teachers who see and act in particular ways? What do teachers and learners learn and internalize about gender and sexuality as desiring subjects? How are “proper” and “improper” desire learned and taught?
- Can (real or imagined) borders of sex, gender and sexuality be conceived of as sites of creative dialogue and social agency? In what ways does the space of ‘trans’ provide opportunities for collaboration as opposed to conflict?
- How do normalized discourses in educational contexts create or limit the space for the performance and enactment of difference? In what ways can we re-imagine these discourses? Consider media discourses that construct youth as either hyper sexual or asexual, school policies for the inclusion and exclusion of those who are different such as immigrants, LGBT youth, ethnic minorities, disabled students, etc.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
- Theoretical papers: These papers are informed by sociological, anthropological, educational and/or feminist theory, and provide new ways of exploring and understanding difference.
- Empirical research papers: These papers present studies of micro or macro social contexts to deepen our understanding of the ways in which difference can be established, enacted and/or resisted.
- Microsoft Word document, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12-point font. American Psychological Association (APA) standard format for citations and references.
- Cover sheet should include name, degree, and school/department affiliation. Name should not appear on any of the pages, except on the cover sheet.
- Please send submissions as .doc attachments to TC.SIE.Journal@gmail.com. All submissions should be copied to Mary Ann Chacko (mac2322@tc.columbia.edu).
- Please direct questions to editors: Shenila Khoja-Moolji (ssk2143@tc.columbia.edu) and Stephanie McCall (sdm36@tc.columbia.edu).
- All submissions will go through a double-blind peer review process.

“Childhood, Sexuality and Sexualisation” (editors: Emma Renold, Jessica Ringrose and Danielle Egan. Palgrave.

If successful, this collection will be the first academic volume that brings together groundbreaking scholarship on the sexual cultures of children and young people living in new sexually saturated societies. It will offer a range of new research findings directly foregrounding the experiences of children and young people’s sexualities across a range of sites and spaces. It will also unpack the socio-historical, cultural and policy contexts of the sexualisation debates. Collectively the chapters not only complicate and contextualise the assumptions in popular texts and governmental reports over the ‘sexualisation of the child’, but identify new pressures facing tweens and teens as they negotiate their own and others’ sexual identities, relationships and cultures. Key questions that this edited volume engage with include:

- Do the contemporary sexualisation debates constitute a renewed crisis of childhood? How is this aged, gendered, raced and classed?

- What are the theoretical and methodological challenges in researching young sexualities in an era of ‘sexualisation’?

- How are children and young people negotiating global sexualised cultures in locally and culturally specific ways?

- What can the history of regulated young sexual cultures, relationships and identities tell us about how to engage in the contemporary and changing sexual/ised landscape?’

CALL FOR CHAPTERS
We encourage submissions that are in dialogue with the aims of the collection and the key questions above. We welcome scholars from diverse theoretical and disciplinary fields, including those working across a range of regional, national and transnational contexts. We thus welcome contributions from critical social psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians and cultural studies scholars who are engaged with empirical research projects on children, childhood, sexuality and sexualisation. We especially welcome chapters which foreground the perspectives and experiences of children and young people themselves.
ABSTRACTS: An abstract of no more than 300 words and a short biography of no more than 50 words should be emailed to: Dr Emma Renold (renold@cf.ac.uk<mailto:renold@cf.ac.uk> ) no later than the 5 April 2012. Final decisions on the selection of abstracts will be no later than 30th April 2012.

Full chapters will be between 6000-7000 words and further details regarding time frames will be provided when the book contract has been finalized and agreed.

The Center for Women’s and Gender Studies
Childhood and Youth Research Cluster

presents a lecture by

ROBIN BERNSTEIN
Associate Professor, Harvard University
Harrington Fellow, University of Texas at Austin

Thursday, April 21, 3-4:30 pm
Texas Union, Chicano Culture Room 4.206

PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE OR RESISTANCE?
RE-EVALUATING THE CLARK DOLL TESTS

From 1939 through the mid-1950s, psychologists Mamie Clark and Kenneth Clark
conducted their famous “doll test” in which they asked African American
children whether they preferred black or white dolls. Most children identified
white dolls as “nice” and African American dolls as “bad”—proof, the Clarks
argued, that segregation damaged black children psychologically. The doll test
figured pivotally in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that
ruled against segregation in public schools, and it installed in American
common sense the belief that doll preference indexes racial self-esteem. Since
Brown, social scientists have identified many flaws in the Clarks’ experiment,
but in the popular sphere, the tests have lost none of their persuasive power.

Bernstein relocates the “doll test” from its familiar history—that of the Civil
Rights Movement—to another, defamiliarizing one: the history of
representational play involving racialized dolls. She re-reads the Clarks’
experiment through the lens of this tradition of performance in everyday life.
A black child’s rejection of a black doll might, as the Clarks argued, reveal
internalized racism; but it could also constitute a rejection of the violently
racist practices of performance-play that had, for a century, been coordinated
through black dolls. Bernstein makes a case for this second possibility. This
talk recuperates the Clarks by defending the doll test not as flawed social
science but instead as brilliant dramaturgy. Furthermore, this argument
redeems the Clarks’ child subjects by offering a new understanding of them not
as passive internalizers of racism instead as resistors to inherited traditions
of performance.

Robin Bernstein, a current Harrington Fellow in the Department of Theatre and
Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, is a faculty member of Harvard’s
Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and Committee
on Degrees in History and Literature. Her new book, Racial Innocence:
Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, is forthcoming from
NYU Press.

Please join us for this wonderful talk, “Helping Children and Families When a Parent Has Cancer: Current Evidence to Enhance Practice,”
Friday, April 22, 1:00 pm-3:00 p.m., in the School of Social Work’s UTOPIA Theatre.

Dr.Frances Lewis holds the Virginia and Prentice Bloedel Professorship at the University of Washington School of Nursing. She will review the scientific evidence on the impact of parental cancer on dependent children, summarize results from a randomized clinical trial, the Enhancing Connections Program, and outline activities that providers can do to foster beneficial outcomes for the child and affected ill parent.

http://www.utexas.edu/ssw/news/lewis-parental-cancer/

rsvp to Farya Phillips ffarya@gmail.com

COMPANY: Health Start
INDUSTRY: Non-profit, prevention/wellness and early childhood education
JOB LOCATION: Austin, TX
TIMEFRAME: 15 hours per week (MUST BE AVAILABLE FROM JANUARY 19, 2011 THROUGH MAY 22, 2011)

COMPANY OVERVIEW: HealthStart is seeking an intern interested in helping change the world for the better through outreach and communications. Our primary purpose is to improve child health. HealthStart’s vision is that all children will learn the fundamentals of being healthy as naturally as they learn their ABCs. Through this information children will achieve lifelong wellness. Our mission is to give young children and their families the knowledge they need to be and stay healthy their whole lives. Our early health education is supplemented with materials for parents to help them support their child’s health.

Responsibilities

Health Start is currently seeking a part-time Spring 2011 intern with highly developed communications skills. You will help shape our message and create a plan to raise awareness regarding HealthStart’s mission and to attract supporters and potential donors. Other duties will include writing an online blog, regular postings to our Facebook and Twitter pages, bi-monthly newsletter, press releases and other related tasks. All of these experiences should be highly transferrable to any other creative work environment.

Job responsibilities may include:

Press releases and articles
Creating an electronic newsletter format for our website and our ‘fans’
Crafting campaign materials to help attract donors
Developing materials to attract potential community partners
Fund raising event materials
Other communications and marketing related tasks as assigned.
Qualifications

Candidates for the position must have experience with basic design, marketing, advertisement, social media, website development, or related activity. Employment experience or a strong interest in social entrepreneurship, social marketing, health and wellness or early childhood education is preferred. Must be familiar with basic computer operations including MS WORD, EXCEL, the Internet and Adobe Creative Suite. In addition, candidates should have some or all of the following skills:

Quick study
A willingness to learn new things or new ways of doing things
Attention to detail
Excellent verbal and communication skills
Enthusiasm about making a difference
Creative and innovative thinking
Ability to meet deadlines with little or no daily onsite supervision
Compensation: This position comes with a nominal stipend. The amount of the stipend depends on the availability of funding.

Contact Information: Interested candidates should submit a resume and cover letter (required) by email to Robin Herskowitz, Executive Director. Two references required.

I wanted to let you know loveisrespect, The National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline is hiring an Intern for the Spring semester.
This is a paid Internship and will begin January 8th until the end of the semester.
If you know any students that may be interested, please have them apply here:

http://www.tcfv.org/jobs/

Communications Internships

ClubGEN is an after school program for middle-school girls. Local high school girls are hired and trained to lead weekly interactive, fun sessions around issues of body image, self-esteem, bullying, career exploration, confidence, financial literacy, goal setting, healthy eating and physical fitness, healthy relationships, substance abuse & stress management and team-building.

Currently, clubGEN is looking for 2 communications interns to work 15 hours a week. Communications interns with be responsible for managing a cohesive public relations campaign for GENaustin’s ClubGEN programs. Day to day work will include creating social media content, marketing materials, writing press releases and newsletters, video and photo work and other communications related tasks, as well as office support. The Ideal candidate is pursuing a degree in Communications, Public relations or Graphic Design, is self-directed, responsible, and reliable. Fluency in Spanish a plus.

Requirements
Knowledge of Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, and Imovie
Ability to work in a team and independently
Commitment to the mission of GENAustin and ClubGEN
Thrives in a self-motivated environment
Possesses excellent written and verbal skills
Applicants must submit: a sample of previous graphic design or video work, writing sample, resume, and a complete GENaustin Communications Internship Application

Program Internships

ClubGEN is an after school program for middle-school girls. Local high school girls are hired and trained to lead weekly interactive, fun sessions around issues of body image, self-esteem, bullying, career exploration, confidence, financial literacy, goal setting, healthy eating and physical fitness, healthy relationships, substance abuse & stress management and team-building.

Currently, clubGEN is looking for 3 program interns to work 10 hours a week. Interns will be responsible for supporting clubGEN programs, developing and adapting curricula, co-facilitating clubGEN programs, and assisting with office and management tasks associated with clubGEN afterschool programs. Ideal candidate is pursuing a degree in Social Work, Education, Psychology, or Women’s/Gender studies

Requirements
Interest in and dedication to the mission of GENaustin and clubGEN
Have leadership experience with youth
Is available to attend weekly planning meetings, Friday 10-12
Is available to facilitate after-school clubs
Has reliable transportation
Has excellent verbal and written communication skills
Thrives in a self-motivated environment
Applicant must submit completed program intern application, resume, and problem solving exercise
Dani Slabaugh
South Austin Campus Coordinator
Dani@GENaustin.org
Cell: (517) 242 3649

VOLUNTEER ROLES IN THE SAFE SCHOOLS PROGRAM

Volunteers are encouraged to take on multiple roles within the program. Some duties will include:

Curriculum Development. Volunteers will help design and implement new program curriculum and activities.

Community Outreach. Volunteers will research potential contacts within the school system (receptive teachers, counselors, GSA sponsors, etc.). They will obtain phone numbers/emails for our database, and contact those who may be interested in inviting us into the classroom. This role is vital to keeping the Safe Schools Program active.

Op-Ed Writers. We encourage Safe Schools staff to write opinion pieces for submission to local publications. Topics may vary, from LGBTQ teen suicide, to protesting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” TCRP is happy to assist in article submission.

Classroom Facilitators. This is one of the most important roles within the project. Facilitators will conduct activities in the classroom and promote positive, healthy discussion. Facilitators should have previous classroom experience and be able to demonstrate the ability to handle difficult discussions and student behavior. Facilitators do not need to identify as an LGBTQ individual. They do, however, need to be available at least once a month during school hours.

Guest Speakers. We include 2 guest speakers in every class presentation. Guest speakers should identify themselves as a LGBTQ person and be willing to discuss their personal experiences in a classroom setting. Some topics may include: a coming out story, harassment/bullying they may have experienced (especially in high school), stereotypes, and how they are affected by them, etc. Pictures and stories are encouraged to illustrate points. Guest speakers should be available at least once a month during school hours. We hope to include as many diverse people and stories as possible.

For more information on how to get involved, contact Amanda Hill, Amanda@texascivilrightsproject.org. 1405 MONTOPOLIS DRIVE AUSTIN, TX 78741 PHONE: 512.474.5073 ext. 102 FAX: 512.474.0726

The Center for Health and Social Policy Proudly Presents:

Schools and Inequality, Revisited

by Dr. Paul von Hippel

Do U.S. schools contribute to the achievement gaps between children of different backgrounds? This question was famously debated in the 1960s and 1970s. Please join us as Dr. von Hippel revisits it in light of more recent research.

When: September 24, 2010

12:15 pm -2:15pm

Where: Bass Lecture Hall - LBJ School of Public Affairs - 2315 Red River

Lunch will be provided.

Please RSVP via email to robin.pearson@austin.utexas.edu

Next Month:  On October 25 CHASP will host our own Cynthia Osborne to present her findings on the evaluation of Texas’ Paternity and Parenting Awareness program for high school students.  Details will be forthcoming. Save the date!

I want to remind you of the meeting that is being held to organize Queer Youth and Young Adults through ALLGO.

ALLGO, a statewide people of color organization, seeks to identify LGBT people of color priorities and strategies as they relate to Reproductive Justice, Sexual Freedom, Anti-Violence and Immigrant and Refugee Rights. For more information on meeting times and locations, please contact http://allgo.org/allgo/

Fri, September 17, 2010 • 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM • Utopia Theater, SSW 2.106

Sat, September 18, 2010 • 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM • Utopia Theater, SSW 2.106

A Play by Azure Osborne-Lee
CROOKED PARTS is the coming of age story of a 12 year old girl named Winifred. As wildly imaginative Winifred starts the school year off at a brand new school, she begins to explore how her hair affects the way that her peers see her and she sees herself. In the process Winifred must decide what she’s willing to give up in order to fit in.
Sponsored by: Co-sponsored by the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, Gender and Sexuality Center, and the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies

Goodwill GoodGuides Youth Mentoring Program needs volunteer Mentors!

·        Mentors are needed for one year (4 hrs/month); hours are flexible!

·        GoodGuides matches “at risk/at-hope” Youth (ages 12-17) with caring adults in a one-on-one mentorship. Youth meet with a Mentor, over the course of a year, and do fun, everyday activities (art projects, going to museums, bike riding, playing sports, or just talking). Mentors also help Youth build and explore education and career goals for the future. GoodGuides wants to make Mentoring accessible and easy so, Youth and Mentors are matched based on, common interests, availability and location. In fact, mentoring can take place anytime of the day including, evenings and weekends. This is an exciting and rewarding opportunity to make a significant impact on the life of a young person. Also, we are open to ideas and those interested in leading workshops for our group. GoodGuides wants to match 100 Youth in Austin this year. Please help us reach this goal!

For more information visit http://http://www.austingoodwill.org/wds/goodguides.html or e-mail caitlin.morris@austingoodwill.org

My name is Ami Kane and I am the Conference and Workshop Manager for GENaustin. I have been in this role for just a few months now and one of my big tasks is to begin developing a core of volunteers to deliver one time workshops throughout the community for girls in 4-12 grades.

Workshop Volunteers

GENaustin is looking for enthusiastic, empowered women to conduct workshops throughout the Central Texas area. Workshop Volunteers will deliver GENaustin one time workshops in schools and community partner locations for girls in 4th-12th grades. Workshop topics include body image/media literacy, healthy relationships, and communication/friendships.

Location: Most volunteer hours will be spent throughout the greater Austin area, delivering workshops at schools community partners. A few hours may be spent at the GENaustin main office at the Ann Richards School completing administrative tasks.

Key Responsibilities:
• Training—as this position leads workshops for girls, attendance at a 6 hour comprehensive facilitation training is required.
• Direct service—delivering GENaustin’s workshop curriculum to girls in grades 4-12.
• Administration—occasionally, Workshop Volunteers may be asked to assist with workshop administration, such as contacting schools to schedule workshops.

Reports to: Conference and Workshop Manager, Workshop Coordinator

Length of Appointment: One school year

Time Commitment: Flexible, however:
• Workshops usually take place during school hours (8am-4pm).
• Workshop volunteers are asked to commit to a minimum of two workshops a month (workshops are usually 1 hour each; the total commitment per workshop is approximately 3 hours when planning and travel time are included.)

Skills:
• Must be committed to the goals/mission of GENaustin.
• Must be team oriented.
• Must possess excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Must have reliable transportation.
• Must attend Workshop Volunteer training.
• Group facilitation experience and/or experience working with youth are preferred.

The Girls Empowerment Network’s mission is to foster healthy self-esteem in girls by engaging them to explore and define their personal values and to build skills that empower them with confidence and courage to make wise choices.

For more information contact Ami Kane at (512) 841-4036, fax (512) 841-7465 or visit www.genaustin.org

Deadline: 1 August 2010

Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, a peer-reviewed online journal, invites submissions for its thematic issue, “Becoming-Girl.” Deleuze articulates the notion of becoming as existing through multiplicity and alliances, a process that does not have a beginning or end, but is always in-progress; becoming is, much like girlhood, intermezzo. Deleuze claims that “Girls do not belong to an age group, sex, order, or kingdom: they slip in everywhere, between orders, acts, ages, sexes.” Girls’ identities, interactions and relationships, particularly in cyber-contexts, are rhizomatic, complex, bordering the virtual and reality in their multiple becomings.
The purpose of this special issue is to explore how girls negotiate identity and practice resistance rhizomatically. We are particularly interested in how identity negotiations operate in digital cultures, such as social networks (Facebook, MySpace), virtual realities (Second Life), and activist cultural productions by girls, such as ‘zines, blogs, instant message communication, and mobile phone texting. We are interested in multiple approaches, genres, and media that consider these issues, including mediums that resist categorization.

Proposals might address the following questions:

· How can girls resist fixed identity constructs through digital mediums?

· How do girls engage digital spaces to negotiate identity and the process of becoming?

· How do such spaces foster connectedness rather than isolated action(s) for girls who resist dominant cultural messages about girlhood?

· What are the everyday embodied conditions of girls’ lives as constructed/ experienced through new technologies and communication networks?

· How is gender and femininity experienced in the virtual medium?

· What are the possibilities of the so-called networked body or the body online?
· How might girls’ rhizomatic online identity constructions and alliances challenge or disrupt (or reinforce) traditional social interactions?

As a full text online periodical, Rhizomes emphasizes multimedia to foster imaginative work that challenges typical critical forms. While submissions need not necessarily include developed multimedia, authors are encouraged to consider how their work might be enhanced by elements specific to the online medium. For additional information and submission guidelines, please visit the journal’s website: www.rhizomes. net.
Please direct all submissions and inquiries to Leandra Preston at goleandra@gmail. com.

Research involving girls directly (rather than only theoretically) must have IRB approval. Inquiries or abstracts welcomed any time; deadline for completed essays or multimodal works, August 1, 2010.

NOT JUST FOR MEN

VIEW CONFERENCE WEBSITE
<http://ows.edb.utexas.edu/?q=site/2nd-national-psychotherapy-men-conference>
LOCATION: AT&T Conference Center, Austin, TX
FEES: Full: $150, Student: $75  including  meals

Keynote Speakers:

• Dr. Gary Brooks, Baylor University
• “From Outreach to Psychotherapy: New Interventions for Traditional Men”

• Dr. Mark Kiselica, College of New Jersey

• “Accentuating Positive Masculinity: A New Foundation for Psychotherapy with Boys and Men”

Noted Presenters:

• Dr. Melba Vasquez, APA President-Elect, Ethical Issues with Men
• Dr. Holly Sweet, Cambridge Center for Gender Relations, Female Therapists/Male Clients

• Dr. Sam Buser, Past President TPA, Men in Couples Counseling

• Dr. Miguel Gallardo, Past President CPA, Intimate Partner Violence

Other Breakout Sessions:  Group Therapy, Live Demonstrations, Anger Management, Addressing Power & Privilege with Diverse Men, Using Humor, Depressed Men, Fatherhood, and Spirituality. *7 CE Credits Available (Psychologists, LPC, LMFT & Social Workers) REGISTER NOW <http://ows.edb.utexas.edu/?q=site/2nd-national-psychotherapy-men-conference/registration>