Women's Studies Section

Association of College & Research Libraries / American Library Association

WSSLinks

Women, Girls, and Education

Welcome to Women, Girls, and Education, part of WSSLinks, developed and maintained by the
Women's Studies Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries.

WSSLINKS | ACRL Women's Studies Section Home Page

Curriculum

• Educator's Reference Desk Lesson Plans Database
  Search the database for topics relating to women and girls. Check off grade level(s) of interest K-12, plus "higher education," "vocational education," and "adult/continuing education. Examples that result from checking off all K-12 levels: "Expanding Pre-conceived Beliefs About Sex Roles," by Melisa Cabe, Women in American History," by Kristine A. McIntosh, "Examining Ideas about Body Image," by Dr. Brian F. Geiger and Dr. Cindy J. Petri, Follow the Drinking Gourd (women's history lesson centering around Harriet Tubman), by Chelsey S. Brandt, and Bound Feet, from the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project.
  
  
• EdHelper.com
  Thousands of lesson plans and web-based assignments ("webquests"); there are some that cover women, girls, or gender. (Do a search for "women's issues," "gender," etc.) Pay most attention to the results in the "Results from Educationally Reviewed Material" category.
  
  
• TheGateway.org: The Gateway to Educational Materials
  Searchable database of lesson plans, curriculum units, etc. on the Internet. Check off grade level(s) of interest. Search for "women," "feminism," "gender" or "girls" as keywords or in the fulltext of the descriptions.
  
  
• Gender Equity Activities for Teachers
  From Myra Sadker Foundation, these are suggestions for focusing on gender equity (scroll down the page to find them).
  
  
• Media Portrayal of Women and Girls is a part of the Media Awareness Network site from Canada. To search for lesson plans on gender portrayal, visit the Lesson Library section and use the drop-down menu to find "gender portrayal."
  
  
• Learners Online has lesson plans on "Contributions of Women" (women's history), Women in Afghanistan, and "A Slam-Dunk for Women's Sports."
  
  
• National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with the National Trust for the Humanities, and the MarcoPolo Education Foundation has developed EdSitement, a searchable site that brings together online humanities resources for all educational levels. Search for "gender." ("Women" turns up too many incidental hits for men and women...) Limit to grade level, etc. if desired.
  
  
• National Women's History Project
  Non-profit organization selling books, posters, guides, videos, and other resources; conducts in-service training for school teachers.
  
  
• Schools of California Online Resources for Education (SCORE) has a database of lessons/activities on the Web. A search of this database for the topic/keyword "women" results in numerous lesson plans in women's history and other topics
  
  
  
• Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment
  U.S. National Archives site for students and teachers containing primary sources, activities, and links to related web sites.
  
  
• Women of the Century: An Education World WebQuest..
  
  
• Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
  Women-focused curriculum units on the site include "Women Writers in Latin America," "Women's Voices in Fiction," "Gender, Race, and Milieu in Detective Fiction," and Biology and History of Ethnic Violence and Sexual Oppression .
  
  

• Directory of On-line Learning Modules
  From Virginia Tech Women's Studies Program.
  
  
• Syllabi on the Web for Women and Gender-Related Courses
  Maintained by Joan Korenman; arranged by discipline.
  
  
• Women in the Curriculum series
  From the National Center for Curriculum Transformation Projects on Women, these short books offer suggestions, resources, and rationale for infusing gender into courses in all disciplines. They are aaccessible in fulltext through ERIC (select advanced search and search for "Women in the Curriculum series" as a title search. Include the quotation marks in the search statement.).

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Pedagogy

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Research

 

ERIC Database
Searchable database of educational research. Search for "women," "girls," "gender," and specific topics. For complex searches, try Advanced search.

Research sponsored by the American Association of University Women


Research Centers
International listing of research centers on women; primarily university-based. Maintained by the Univ. of Wisconsin System Women's Studies Librarian.

Feminist Educational Research links
Maintained by Martin Ryder, University of Colorado at Denver.

Statistical Sources

• Genderstats
  From the World Bank. Choose any country listed, then the category "thematic data" from the menu on the left. Then click on "education" to see percentages of females enrolled at all levels of education and as teachers, the literacy rate, etc. in that country. It is also possible to search by region.
  
  
• Statistical section from UNESCO's Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2003/4, Gender and Education for All, The Leap to Equality (2003/4) has downloadable spreadsheets for tables on topics including Adult and Youth Literacy, Early Childhood Care and Education, Participation in Secondary and Post-Secondary Education, Tertiary Education: Field of Study (%) and Female Share, and more.
  
  
• U.S. National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES)
  Compiles ed. stats. from a variety of sources and interprets ed. stats. and issues reports, which are summarized on the site and downloadable in full as pdf files. Use the Electronic Catalog to search for reports. Examples of recent reports:
  • Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Minorities (September, 2007) (includes data by gender)
  • Postsecondary Participation Rates by Sex and Race/Ethnicity: 1974-2003 (March 2005)
  • Gender Differences in Participation and Completion of Undergraduate Education and How They Have Changed (Feb., 2005)
  • Trends in Educational Equity of Girls & Women (2004); updates Trends in Educational Equity of Girls & Women (April 2000)
  • Gender and Racial/Ethnic Differences in Salary and Other Characteristics of Postsecondary Faculty: Fall 1998 (September 2002)
  • The Gender and Racial/Ethnic Composition of Postsecondary Instructional Faculty and Staff, 1992–98 (August 2002)
  • Competing Choices: Men's and Women's Paths After Earning a Bachelor's Degree (May 2001)
  • Entry and Persistence of Women and Minorities in College Science and Engineering Education (August 2000)
  • Salary, Promotion, and Tenure Status of Minority and Women Faculty in U.S. Colleges and Universities (March 2000)
  • Findings from The Condition of Education 1997: Women in Mathematics and Science (July 1997)
  • Women, Education, and Outcome (Sept. 1996)

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Funding

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Teacher Training

Gender Issues in Education

• Educator's Reference Desk Resource Guides and Question Archive Responses
  
  • Gender Equity
  • Sexual Harassment
  • Sexual Orientation
    
    
  
  
  
• ERIC Digests are short reports on educational topics that formerly were compiled by ERIC staff. The reports are available as fulltext documents when retrieved through the ERIC database. Selected examples:
  • Gender Differences in Educational Achievement within Racial and Ethnic Groups
  • Gender Issues in the Language Arts Classroom
  • Latina High School Leaving: Some Practical Solutions
  • Welfare to Work: Considerations for Adult and Vocational Education Programs
  • Women and Minorities in the Science, Mathematics and Engineering Pipeline
    
    
  
  
  
• Bernice Sandler, consultant and trainer on women's equity in education, has a homepage with material on the origin of Title IX, strategies on warming up the "chilly climate" for women and girls in schools, and dealing with sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other issues.
  
  
• Gender & Diversities Institute
  Conducts projects on technology and gender, educational reform, gendered violence, work and economy, and gender and masculinities.
  
  
• WEEA Equity Resource Center (Equity Online) (Site no longer maintained, but links are still working. For newer information, see Gender, Diversities, & Technology Institute .)
  WEEA worked to "improve educational, social, and economic outcomes for women and girls." Site included links to information about Title IX and other issues, archived messages from the discussion forum EDEQUITY Online, WEEA Digests on educational issues and gender, downloadable in pdf format, and information about WEEA publications. Topics of digests: equity and careers, equity and technology, gender equity and boys, immigrant girls, disability, gender-based violence, and learning with computers.
  
  
• Women's Education: the Contending Discourses & Possibilities for Change
  Summary of a workshop at a conference on Adult Learning and the Challenges of the 21st Century, Fifth International Conference on Adult Education, CONFINTEA V, held in Hamburg, July 14-18, 1997.

• NetAid antipoverty network's Global Campaign for Education includes a Girls' Education effort.
  
  
• Partnership on Sustainable Strategies for Girls Education
  Co-sponsored by Department for International Development (DFID) U.K., The World Bank, The Rockefeller Foundation and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) "dedicated to improving educational opportunities for girls in the developing world."
  
  
• Save the Children organization's Girls' Education Focus
  "An Uneducated Girl is a Girl in Darkness."
  
  
  
• Starting Now: Strategies for Helping Girls Complete Primary," by Andrea Rugh (November 2000), is a paper prepared for Strategies for Advancing Girls' Education (SAGE), a project that provided technical and training assistance in girls’ primary education to USAID Missions, conducted research on educational quality and best practices for girls' education, and organized workshops.
  
  
  
• UNESCO's site includes a section on UNESCO's support for the education of girls, which focuses on primary education, report: Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2003/4: Gender and Education for All, The Leap to Equality, and many other documents.
  
  
• UNICEF's Girls' Education site
  "UNICEF’s aim is to get more girls into school, ensure that they stay in school and that they are equipped with the basic tools they need to succeed in later life...UNICEF’s acceleration strategy is speeding progress in girls’ enrolment in 25 selected countries during the 2002-2005 period." UNICEF publishes The State of the World's Children series, including The State of the World's Children 2004 - Girls, Education and Development (downloadable). An article " Closing the Male-Female Gap in Schooling," by Charles Dervarics, on the Population Reference Bureau website surveys progress and prospects (March 2004).
  
  
  
• The USAID Women in Development site includes descriptions of current projects on gender equity in education and links to descriptions of completed projects on the education of women and girls. Also archived on the site is "Educating Girls: A Development Imperative" (transcript of a speech by then First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton, at an international conference on girls' education, May 7, 1998.)See also the agency's publication "Girls' Education: Good for Boys, Good for Development," Gender Matters Information Bulletin No. 5, October 1999 (no longer online).
  
  
• Women, Human Rights & Education: The People's Movement for Human Rights Education



• Women's Education
  Project in Nepal sponsored by Educate the Children.

• Amelia Bloomer Project, of the Feminist Task Force, American Library Association, compiles annual lists of recommended feminist books for youth (since 2002).
  
  
• AWSEM
  Advocates for Women in Science, Engineering and Mathematics, based in Portland, OR, brings together parents, educators and women professionals in science-related fields to kindle and support young women’s interest in these fields.
  
  
• The Girl Child and Gender Inequality is a newsletter issue from October 2002 on the UNICEF Voices of Youth site.
  
  
• "Expect the Best From a Girl"
  From Mount Holyoke College, the Women's College Coalition, and the Ad Council.
  
  
• Girl Power!
  National public education campaign sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services to encourage and empower 9- to 14- year old girls. Site includes games, a diary, sports links, and a section for adults who care about girls.
  
  
• Girls' Coalition
  Consortium of Boston area organizations promoting education about girls' issues and networking to increases services for girls.
  
  
• Girls Incorporated
  A "national youth organization dedicated to helping every girl become strong, smart and bold."
  
  
• Voices of Girls in Science, Mathematics and Technology Program
  Papers from a funded project in Appalachia.
  
  

• Addressing Sexual Harassment on Campus
  Eric Digest ED400002 96, by Jonathan Holub.
  
  
• Resources for Building a Harassment-Free Campus
  From AAUW.
  
  
• Sexual Harassment in Higher Education from Conflict to Community
  ERIC Digest ED364134 93, by Robert O. Riggs And Others
  
  
• Protecting Students from Harassment and Hate Crime: A Guide for Schools 157 page book from the U.S. Department of Education, January, 1999; offers step-by-step guidance to schools. Mounted in html and pdf versions.
  
  
• Sexual Harassment Interventions
  ERIC Digest No. 206, by Bettina Lankard Brown.
  
  

• National Coalition of Girls Schools site describes the benefits of attending an all-girls school, summarizes a profile of alumnae, and has a section on girls and financial literacy, and has sub-divisions for parents, educators and girls.
  
  
• A Closer Look at Women's Colleges, by Irene Harwarth, for the U.S. Department of Education (July 1999) http://www.ed.gov/pubs/WomensColleges/title.html
  
  
• Yahoo's links to women's colleges.
  
  

• Gender Equity in Sports
  Maintained as part of on an ongoing project by Dr. Mary C. Curtis and Dr. Christine H.B. Grant at The University of Iowa (Women's Intercollegiate Athletics), this is an excellent resource about Title IX compliance, lawsuits, etc. through 2000. See also the listings under "Title IX" below.
  
  
• "Gender Equity in College Sports: an AAUP Position Paper," June 2003 (American Association of University Professors).

• Project on the Status and Education of Women
  An office of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the PSEW works on curriculum and campus climate, promotes women's leadership, and disseminates new research on women and gender. Women and Scientific Literacy and Campus Women Lead: the National Initiative for Women in Higher Education are recent projects.
  
  
• Office of Women in Higher Education
  An office of the American Council for Education, the OWHE "identifies, develops, advances, and supports women leaders in higher education." Initiatives include identifying women leaders, and supporting the retention of women in higher education.
  
  

• Compendium of School-Based and School-Linked Programs for Pregnant and Parenting Adolescents
  From the U.S. Department of Education National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education, Feb., 1999. Offers information on programs with coordinated services for pregnant and parenting teens and their children.

• The statute
  
  
• Title IX: 25 Years of Progress
  From the U.S. Department of Education (June 1997)
  
  
• Title IX: A Brief History
  By Iram Valentin, in the WEAA Equity Resource Center Digest , August 1997)
  
  
• Title IX at 30: Report Card on Gender Equity
  From the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education . The Coalition issued an earlier report at the 25 year mark.
  
  
• The Fall 2002 issue of On Campus With Women is on the theme of 30 years of title IX.
  
  
• As applied to sports, see "Gender Equity in Sports" http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/ge/index.html
  Described above, under Sports.

Welfare Reform and Its Effects on the Educational Opportunities of Poor Women

• From Poverty to Self-Sufficiency:  Role of Postsecondary Education in Welfare Reform
  Report from the Center for Women Policy Studies (2002).



• NYC Agrees to Education for Welfare Recipients
  By Luchina Fisher, Women'sENews (8/2003)



• Maine Supports Welfare Moms Going to College
  By Marie Tessier, Women'sENews (11/2003)



• A Smoother Path to Higher Education: Constructing Policies and Programs That Support Low-Income Women
  By Fern Marx, in On Campus With Women (Spring/Summer, 2004)



• Welfare Reform Jeopardizes Women's Access to Education
  By Vivyan Adair, in On Campus With Women (Spring/Summer, 2004)

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Women's Studies

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History of the Education of Women

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Organizations

• Campus Women's Centers
  List maintained by Gerri Gribi.
  
  
• Scholarly Societies
  Maintained by the Library at University of Waterloo; this section is for women-focused caucuses and associations.
  
  
• Women's Organizations
  Maintained by the Univ. of Wis. System Women's Studies Librarian. Scroll to section of "Academic professional organizations."

• American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has a Women in Higher Education webpage.
  
  
• American Association of University Women
  The AAUW is a membership organization that promotes education and equity for all women and girls. One of its divisions, the AAUW Educational Foundation, funds educational programs that directly benefit women and girls, offers fellowships to outstanding women around the world, and sponsors research.
  
  
• Canadian Congress for Learning Opportunities for Women
  Key focus areas of the CCLOW are literacy, equity in education and job training.
  
  
• International Federation of University Women
  "is an international, non-profit organization of women graduates working to promote lifelong education, to improve the status of women and girls and to enable women to effect positive change for a peaceful world."
  
  
• National Association for Women in Catholic Higher Education
  Is made up of faculty, administrators, staff and students from Catholic colleges and universities.
  
  
• National Center for Curriculum Transformation Resources on Women
  A project of the Institute for Teaching and Research on Women, Towson University, Towson, MD.
  
  
  
• National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education
  An umbrella organization of more than fifty member organizations that work on improving educational opportunities for girls and women. It has published reports on Title IX (see Title IX section above) and on vocational education: Invisible Again: The Impact of Changes in Federal Funding on Vocational Programs for Women and Girls (October, 2001).
  
  
• National Women's Studies Association
  Supports feminist teaching at all levels and the field of women's studies, particularly in colleges and universities.
  
  
• Women's Education Worldwide
  "an alliance of institutions of higher education committed to advancing the cause of educating women around the globe" 
  

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Periodicals

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Discussion Lists

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Maintained by: Phyllis Holman Weisbard, Women's Studies Librarian, University of Wisconsin System.
Email pweisbard at (replace with "@") library.wisc.edu
430 Memorial Library, Madison, WI 53706
Originally created by: Phyllis Holman Weisbard
URL: http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/womened.htm
Last updated: April 22, 2008. Links checked: August 13, 2007.