The Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Women and Gender Studies under the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Dhaka is a two-years program. This program offers a feminist and gender perspective to knowledge and provides a critical understanding to contemporary global and local development issues. It aims to produce a group of experts skilled in doing gender analysis to development policies and programs.
2 courses · 8 credit hours across 1 term
| Code | Course title | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mphil 601 | Introduction to Women and Gender Studies: Theories and Contemporary Issues | 4 |
MPhil 601 Introduction to Women and Gender Studies: Theories and Contemporary Issues
Introduction to the Course Women and Gender Studies transforms the study of women within disciplines into a process by which women’s own experiences become the referent for examining and analysing the world as well as questioning what we learn. Consequently, this introduction to Women and Gender Studies takes at its starting point the history and development of feminist thought in the context of women’s actual lives both from global and local perspective. The course introduces students to the central texts and debates in the academic and ‘real life’ feminism to provide a theoretical framework for further courses in Women and Gender Studies curriculum and to courses in a wide variety of disciplines. Specific Learning Objectives This course aims:
Instructional Strategies The course instructor will use lecture using white board, multimedia presentation, you tube/video and internet sources, presentation by the students, discussion and seminar, in-class and home exercises, reading and writing assignments, review of movies and documentaries, group and individual presentations, field visits, collection of primary data and information, data management and presentation by the students, focus group and participatory discussion as and wherever appropriate.
Course Contents Section 1: Introduction to Women and Gender Studies: History and Development This introductory section will provide students with an overall idea of women and gender studies as a multi-disciplinary subject. It will focus on history and development of women and gender studies, its content, women’s movement and the interconnection between women’s studies and gender studies This section will also explore the trajectory of women’s movement, women’s advancement in the global and national scenario, world conferences on women and other contemporary issues will be discussed. No of Classes: 6 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Readings
Section 2: Understanding Gender This session will provide the foundation in understanding, analysis and critical thought on the relationship between sex and gender. Emphasis will be given on understanding the different concepts and issues of women and gender, such as meaning and definition of gender, gender identity, gender roles, gender relations, gender needs, gender policy, gender equality, gender equity, empowerment, agency, sexuality, violence, gender mainstreaming, gender analysis, intersectionality, masculinities etc. No of Classes: 3 classes References Required Readings 1. Bhasin, K. (2003). Understanding Gender. New Delhi: Women Unlimited 2. Bhasin, K. (1993). What is Patriarchy? New Delhi: Women Unlimited. 3.Hazel, R., & Sally, B. (2000). Gender and development: Concepts and definitions. Institute of Development Studies. Brighton,UK : University of Sussex. Recommended Readings
Section 3: Feminist Theories: Debates and Discourse This section will introduce the theories of feminism/s and the issues and concepts that feminists theorize about. It will also discuss the major schools and waves of feminist thoughts and approaches in order to shed light into the processes and causes that lead to the subordination of women. This section will also make the students contextualize feminism and its various theories to their own time, context and concerns so that they learn to make links between academia and real lives. No of Classes: 7 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Reading
Section 4: Gender and Development In this section student will gain an advance level of critical understanding of how gender is a development issue and development is a gender issue. This section will cover gender and development related key terminologies and paradigm shift from Women in Development (WID), Women and Development (WAD) to Gender and Development (GAD). Part A: This part focuses on a detailed understanding of some definitions and key terms in gender and development. These include: Gender, Culture, Gender Analysis, Gender Discrimination, Gender Division of Labor, Gender Equality and Equity, Gender Mainstreaming, Gender Needs, Gender Planning, Gender Relations, Gender Training, Gender Violence, Intra-household Resource Distribution, feminization of poverty, National Machineries for Women, Patriarchy, Social Justice, Empowerment, Human Rights, Gender Awareness, Gender Roles, Gender Balance, Engender, Sex Disaggregated Data, Gender Gap, Gender Indicators, Gender Sensitivity, Gender Stereotypes, Gender Audit, Gender Budgeting, Gender Policy, Gender Issues in Project Cycle, Access and Control Over Resources, Condition and Position, Development, Globalization, Neo-liberalism, Global restructuring. No of Classes: 2 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Readings
Part B: This part will focus on theoretical and conceptual approaches and transition from WID, WAD and GAD from Bangladesh and Global perspectives. Theories and Debates of gender and development issues will be analyzed from feminist perspectives in this part. No of Classes: 2 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Readings
Section 5: Contemporary Issues
This section will focus on the feminist understandings or gender analyses of globalization and global restructuring. The section will be divided into three parts. The first part will define globalization and the neoliberal policies that have accelerated the processes of globalization. The second part will discuss the gendered impacts of globalization and analyze how there is an unprecedented growth of women’s employment in the global labour market on the one hand and widening economic and gender inequalities on the other hand. It will focus on several concepts, including feminization of labor, gender inequalities within labor market, feminization of migration and global care chain. The last part of the section will incorporate a group session which encourage the students to read any article on the topic of gender and globalization and discuss the result with group members and class mates. No of Classes: 2 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Readings
Class participation/ Case Study
This sub-section addresses two important issues; firstly, it looks into an important form of communication – the ‘mass media’ with reference to images of women, men and gender relations. Gender representation in advertisement, print & electronic media and cinema will be analysed and understood through a gender lens. The second issue is gender and ICT. The sub-section emphasizes that against the existing and growing digital and gender divide, women’s active involvement in ICTs is essential to ensure gender equity in the information society. No of Classes: 2 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Readings
This section will investigate the global concern climate change through a gender lens with reference to the images of women in climate change discourse, gendered impacts of climate change in different settings and the role of women in climate change adaptation and mitigation. No of Classes: 2 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Readings
This section will focus on the conceptual understanding of time pressed and time poverty. It will emphasize gender equality in time to understand issues related time pressed and time poverty to explore women’s working long hours without having any choices. Gender leisure time will also be discussed here. The role of social institutions and other household gender attitudes will be analyzed in this section. No of Classes: 2 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Readings
This sub-section discusses a set of key terms (specifically, LGBTQIA) to explore the significance of these terms in a wider social and political context. It thus, provides a shared language to discuss key issues in gender and sexuality studies and introduces a range of critical issues that are directly related to the politics of the body, gender and sexualities. No of Classes: 2 classes References Required Readings:
Recommended Readings
This section will examine the relation between gender and migration with a focus on both Bangladesh and global perspective. It will also shed lights on contemporary issues such as sex tourism, the gendered nature of the recent growth in forced migration, people’s displacement due to war and conflict and rising number of refugee, including women and children and increasing violence in recent decades. No of Classes: 2 classes References Required reading
Recommended reading
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| Mphil 602 | Research Methodology: Feminist Perspective and Critical Issues | 4 |
MPhil 602 Research Methodology: Feminist Perspective and Critical Issues Introduction to the Course This course aims to give students an in-depth understanding of social science research, including quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research methodology. This course will also help the students to develop a critical approach to conventional social science research from a gender lens and understand feminist research. In doing so, the course examines such matters as the conducting of research, data collection and the critical interpretation and dissemination of results, including a thorough consideration of the way of developing a research proposal, writing reports and scholarly styles of writing bibliographies references from a gender lens. Thus at the end of the course, the students will have learned the language, principles, reasoning and methodologies of both the qualitative, quantitative and mixed method research, their application and dissemination. As part of the course the students will be equipped with the skills of critical reading of research literature and of conducting their Mphil research. Specific Learning Objectives This course aims:
Instructional Strategies The course instructor will use lecture using white board, multimedia presentation, you tube/video and internet sources, presentation by the students, discussion and seminar, in-class and home exercises, reading and writing assignments, review of movies and documentaries, group and individual presentations, field visits, collection of primary data and information, data management and presentation by the students, focus group and participatory discussion as and wherever appropriate.
Course Contents Section 1: The State of Contemporary Social Research The section helps the students to know the basics of the contemporary social research and to introduce themselves with the feminist critique of social research. This section includes the following topics:
No of Classes: 4 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Reading:
Section 2: Varieties of Social Research This section introduces students will different approaches to social researches, their criticism, comparison and combination. It includes the following topics: Quantitative research: central criteria of quantitative research; critique of quantitative methodology Qualitative research: central criteria of qualitative research; critique of qualitative methodology Mixed methods research: the rationales, nature and challenges of mixed methods research No of Classes: 4 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Readings
Section 3: Data collection methods and data analysis This section provides students with a critical review of different methods of data collection for social science research, particularly on gender issues. This will cover data collection methods and data analysis techniques used in qualitative and quantitative research. The topic includes
No of Classes: 8 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Readings
Section 4: Feminist research This section discusses feminist challenges towards social science research with a view to destabilizing objectivity and includes the following topics:
No of Classes: 5 classes References Required Readings
Recommended Readings
Section 5: Developing a research proposal This is an applied section that guides students to develop a research proposal based on some agreed topics. Students are guided to apply different steps of standard research proposal. This section includes the following topics:
Proposal development (Problem statement; Rationale of study, Literature review, Methodology; Tools for data collection, Sampling; Data processing; Data analysis technique, Referencing) No of Classes: 5 classes References Required Readings 1.Wong, P. T., & Psych, C. (2016). How to write a research proposal. Langley: Trinity Western University Langley. Retrieved, 26. 2. Smith, N. L., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2005). How to prepare a dissertation proposal: Suggestions for students in education and the social and behavioral sciences. Syracuse University Press.
Section 6: Report Writing, Formatting and bibliographic reference Students will know the process of writing research report/thesis with ethical issues of report writing, bibliography, formatting of report.
No of Classes: 3 classes References Required Readings
Section 7: Course Review No of Classes: 2 classes |