Critical Feminist Investigations

Yana Rodgers
Rutgers University, 2015

Level: beginner

Perspective:	Feminist Economics
Topic:	Race & Gender
Format:	Syllabus

This syllabus was originally taught in Spring 2015
Instructor: Yana Rodgers

Course Description:

This course has dual purposes, to introduce students to the various stages of research and to provide an introduction to feminist perspectives on the politics of producing knowledge. Each student will learn how to be an interdisciplinary researcher while coming to understand the opportunities that feminism presents as a way of seeing, knowing, and representing the world.
Students will need to read assigned texts carefully and be prepared to discuss them in class. There will be several small projects designed to teach students through action how to conduct feminist research. Students will develop and revise a research proposal that will be the basis for further independent work.

Learning Goals:

This course satisfies our department’s learning goals. In particular, students will be able to identify, analyze, and critique the formation and reproduction of social, economic, and political hierarchies grounded in race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, and sexuality.

Schedule:

Week 1: Introduction to Feminist Research
Week 2: Hallmarks of Feminist Research
Week 3: Objectivity and Knowledge Production
Week 4: Conceptualizing Research and Defining Constructs
Week 5: Research Design and Becoming an Effective Researcher
Week 6: An Introduction to Qualitative Methods
Week 7: Asking Questions: Interviews and Focus Groups
Week 8: Qualitative Methods Continued
Week 9: Quantitative Methods: An Introduction to Descriptive Statistics and Charts
Week 10: Describing Data and Talking About Numbers
Week 11: Data Sources
Week 12: Knowledge Production: From Theory to Research
Week 13: Knowledge Production and Feminist Activism
Week 14: Knowledge Production: Research Proposals