|Hui Chunru, president of Chinese Womens College, Beijing.|
Dena Goodman, womens studies and history, Pamela Trotman Reid, psychology, education, Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG), and director of the Womens Studies program; and Sidonie Smith, womens studies and English, presented the workshop at the Chinese Womens College, the flagship educational institution of Chinas National Womens Federation. Their goal, says Goodman, was two-fold. We came to Beijing to share our own experience and insights in designing and teaching womens studies courses and curricula. We also wanted to learn about the issues and concerns the Chinese women brought to the development of womens studies in a very different context than our own.
The group discussed the organization and structure of the Universitys program and shared their own research as it intersects with issues of women and gender. The two groups found much in common, Smith says, in terms of both academic issues and the generational gap in perceptions of feminism. The most significant differences surfaced during a workshop on classroom structure and pedagogical techniques.
|Professors and graduate students came from universities all across China to attend the U-M workshop on womens studies.|
The group was excited about the techniques we use to encourage students to think and participate in classroom activities, Reid adds. They adhere to a very formal classroom structure in China.
Following the workshop the Michigan delegation met with officials from the Chinese Womens College and the Womens Studies Program of the Chinese University of Hong Kong to discuss a possible
joint venture that would bring together faculty and graduate students from all three institutions
together in a transnational, interdisciplinary learning community.
The Beijing workshop was part of an ongoing multi-year project funded by the Ford Foundation and directed by Dr. Wang Zheng, a historian of women and feminism in China who will be joining the Michigan faculty in January 2002 as associate professor of womens studies and senior researcher in IRWG.