CIDEC Seminar Series

Dr. Diane Gérin-Lajoie, Professor, Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning (CTL) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), at the University of Toronto, She is also a researcher at the Centre de recherches en éducation franco-ontarienne (CREFO) at the same institute. 

Video: Official Minority Language Schools in Canada: A Comparative Analysis

Situated in the field of sociology of education, the presentation  provides a critical examination of the issue of identity among Francophone and Anglophone youth enrolled in high schools located in linguistic minority settings in Canada.  Most particularly, it examines the role taken by the school in the process of identity construction of these youth.  In the analysis, the notion of identity is understood as being the result of a social construction.  The presentation consists of a critical examination of the complex development of the rapport to identity among youth from the two official-language communities in Canada.  We see that these adolescents’ rapport to language and culture in particular bring them to cross linguistic and cultural borders on a daily basis.  Results from two ethnographic studies are examined in this presentation.  Within the context of these ethnographic studies, school observations and multiple interviews were performed respectively over a period of three years with two groups of students in Ontario and Quebec.  

Recorded: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 12:00 pm

Recording

Dr. Elaine Unterhalter, Professor of Education & International Development at the Institute of Education (IOE), University of London.

Video: Gender, education and poverty: Reflections on the MDGs and a post 2015 framework

Elaine Unterhalter has more than 25 years experience working on themes concerned with gender, race and class inequalities and their bearing on education. Her specialist interests are in the capability approach and human development and education in Africa, particularly South Africa. Her current concerns are with education, poverty and global social justice. Elaine’s book Gender, Schooling and Global Social Justice won first prize in the Society of Education Studies book awards in 2008.  She has recently completed a project on Gender, education and global poverty reduction initiatives based on case study research in Kenya, South Africa and selected global organizations. She has written widely on gender, education and development with recent articles appearing in Compare, Journal of Human Development & Capabilities, Cambridge Journal of Education, and Theory and Research in Education.

Recorded: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 9:00 am

Recording

Dr. Nahla Abdo, Professor,Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University.

Title: Gender, Race and Class in the Labor Force: the Case of Israel

For this talk, Professor Abdo will be discussing the theoretical framework for her book, Women in Israel: Race Gender and Citizenship, as well as her new work on Women Political Detainees. Women in Israel provides a fresh, gendered analysis of citizenship in Israel. Working from a framework of Israel as a settler-colonial regime,  this important, insightful book presents historical and contemporary comparative approaches to the lives and experiences of Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, and Palestinian Arab women citizens. Nahla Abdo shows that no solution to the problems of the region can be found  without changing existing racial and gender boundaries to citizenship.

Nahla Abdo (Ph.D.) is an Arab Canadian feminist and political activist, Professor of Sociology  at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. She has extensive publications on women, racism, nationalism and the State in the Middle East with special focus on Palestinian women. Among her recent publications: Women in Israel: Race, Gender, and Citizenship (2011); Gender, Citizenship and the State: The Israeli Case. (2010 -Arabic); Women and Poverty in the OPT: Some Conceptual and Methodological Notes, (2007) Violence in the Name of Honour: Theoretical and Political Challenges, -with Shahrzad Mojab, (2004) and Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation -with Ronit Lentin 2002)). In addition to these books Professor Abdo has published numerous articles in international academic journals.  She has also given numerous talks and interviews on events in the Middle East.  Currently, she is completing a book on Women Political Detainees’ lived experiences, before, during and after detention.

Presented: Wednesday November 12, 2012 3:00 pm

Presentation not recorded.

Sogol Zand holds an MA in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex.

Title: The Impact of Microfinance Programmes on Women's Lives: A Case Study in Balkh Province

This case study is part of a larger project that explores women’s participation in different development programmes and projects in Afghanistan. The research specifically explores women’s partic
National Solidarity Programme (NSP)'s Community Development Councils (CDCs) as well as non government organisation  (NGO)-initiated groups for microfinance under the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA). It examines the effects these forms of women’s participation are having on gender roles and relations within the family and the local community.

This Balkh case study is the third and final one in a series that focuses exclusively on women’s participation in MFI loan programmes. It finds that, while not the sole factor driving changes in gender relations the study community, women's taking loans was an important contributing factor, giving them the necessary resources to act on and expand their power and authority both within and outside the household.

Presented: Wednesday, October 12, 2012, 12:00 to 1:30 pm

Presentation not recorded.

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