Doing women's studies : employment opportunities, personal impacts and social consequences / Gabriele Griffin, editor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Griffin, Gabriele.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Employment--European Union countries.

Women.

Women--Employment.

Women's studies.

Social conditions.

European Union countries.

Women--European Union countries--Social conditions.

Women's studies--European Union countries.

Physical Description:

xi, 258 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Zed ; New York : Distributed in the U.S. exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Summary:

With the Expansion of the Eu in 2004 and its inclusion now of 25 European countries, the movement of workers across the Continent will affect the employment opportunities of women. But as this up-to-date investigation across nine countries shows, there remain significant differences amongst specific European countries regarding women's education and employment opportunities. Taking 1945 as its historical starting point, this sociological study, based on some 900 questionnaire responses and more than 300 in-depth interviews, explores the complex interrelationship between women's employment, the institutionalization of equal opportunities, and Women's Studies training.

This volume is the first to explore what happens to women who have undertaken Women's Studies training in the labour market. Factors influencing their actual employment experiences include employment opportunities for women in each country, their expectations of the labour market and gender norms informing those expectations, how far equal opportunities are actually enforced and the strength of local women's movements.

Doing Women's Studies provides unique information about, and insightful analyses of, the changing patterns of women's employment in Europe; equal opportunities in a cross-European perspective; educational migration; gender, race, ethnicity and nationality; and the uneven prevalence and impact of Women's Studies on the lifestyles and everyday practices of those women who have experienced it. The contributors are prominent feminist researchers from nine European countries. Their findings will be of interest to sociologists and gender studies experts working in the areas of gender, employment, equal opportunities and the impact of education on employment.

Contents:

1 Employment opportunities for women in Europe / Nicky le Feuvre, Muriel Andriocci 13

Theoretical perspectives on women's employment in Europe 14

Main features of women's employment in Europe 21

Potential impact of Women's Studies training on equality of opportunity in employment in the EU 57

2 Equal opportunities in cross-European perspective / Isabel Carrera Suarez, Laura Vinuela Suarez 64

Processes of institutionalization of equal opportunities 64

(Un)equal opportunities in practice: the views of Women's Studies students 69

Equal opportunities and employment 75

Equal opportunities and Women's Studies: Women's Studies graduates as agents of social change 79

3 The institutionalization of Women's Studies in Europe / Gabriele Griffin 89

The institutionalization process of Women's Studies in Europe 89

Some consequences of the uneven development of the institutionalization of Women's Studies across Europe 95

4 The professionalization of Women's Studies students in Europe: expectations and experiences / Harriet Silius 111

Research questions and methodology 113

Expectations and experiences of Women's Studies training 115

Employment sectors for Women's Studies 117

Women's Studies training as a professionalization process 119

Women's Studies offers professionalization of equal opportunities 121

Gender expertise is of use in civil society 124

Professionalization as mobility for specialists 125

Women's Studies students professionalize themselves in the labour market 125

The professionalism of Women's Studies graduates 126

Transferable skills and the feminist lens 128

Gender expertise 128

Innovative working life practices 129

Discourses of work and career 132

5 The impact of Women's Studies on its students' relationships and everyday practices / Gabriele Griffin, Jalna Hanmer 141

Accessing Women's Studies training 141

The impact of Women's Studies on its students' personal lives 147

Women's Studies as an identity project 148

How Women's Studies achieves its impact 151

Cultural contexts and Women's Studies 153

Socio-domestic lifestyles 155

Relationships within the family 156

Relationships with children 159

Relationships with partners and domestic arrangements 161

Female friendship networks 164

Overall quality of life 165

6 Educational migration and gender: Women's Studies students' educational mobility in Europe / Borbala Juhasz, Andrea Peto, Jeannette van der Sanden, Berteke Waaldijk 168

Student mobility in Women's Studies - the numbers 170

'Receiving' and 'sending': divisions by country 171

Erasmus student mobility in general and gender equality 175

Courses and credits 178

Information and funding 179

Motives for and impediments to studying abroad 181

The experience of studying abroad 185

The impact of study abroad on educational migrants 186

Educational migration and European citizenship - some conclusions 191

7 Gender, race, ethnicity and nationality in Europe: findings from a survey of women's studies students / Gabriele Griffin 195

Race, ethnicity, migration and Europe 195

Answering the question about ethnic background 200

Colour matters 202

Nationality 203

The matter of regions 204

Religion and ethnic background 205

Other ways of seeing ethnic background 207

8 Comparative research in Europe / Jalna Hanmer 213

Research questions and design 214

Multidisciplinarity 218

Frameworks for communication 219

Concepts and intellectual mapping 222

Quantitative and qualitative research methods 225

Comparbility and non-harmonized data 227

Comparability and harmonized data 229

Standardization 230.

Notes:

"The publication of this book was made possible by the support of the European Union and the University of Hull"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-250) and index.

ISBN:

1842775006

1842775014

OCLC:

56641855