The Wellesley Centers for Women is home to more than 50 individual research, education, and action projects. Some are short-term, specifically focused investigations, evaluations, and trainings. Others are part of larger, long-term initiatives addressing critical areas in the lives of women, children, and families. Our Postdoctoral Research Training program offers three full-time research fellow positions and our international collaborations strive to improve the lives of women and girls across the globe. Learn more about these important initiatives.
This collaboration between the Asian University
for Women (AUW) and the Wellesley
Centers for Women
resulted in the design of a year-long gender studies course, Women Shaping
Society.
Racial/ethnic self-identification can vary over time and place, in other words, some adolescents of mixed ancestry report different single-race or mixed-race identifications at different times and in different situations. This report seeks to explore whether adolescents of mixed-ancestry have particular strengths or weaknesses compared within their single-race-reporting peers.
This project is based on the model of past work dealing with the intersections of women's, and children's, and disability rights in Bangladesh and Nepal. It is a multiphased project to be actualized in Bangladesh (January 2009), Nepal (January 2009), Cambodia (May 2009), and India (May 2009).
A National Research, Writing and Action Initiative
The primary objective of this project is to manage the continuation of the well established Afterschool Matters Initiative, which includes several publications and a Research Grantee program, in addition to planning for the national expansion of a related action/research writing initiative.
APAS is an assessment system that helps programs link quality and youth outcomes together in a comprehensive and integrated fashion. It was developed to help address the accountability challenge that faces afterschool programs.
During this phase of work, NIOST will design and develop two additional measurement tools—a youth survey (SAYO-Y) and a family survey (SAYO-F). These two tools will be used by Massachusetts Department of Education grantees to better understand youth needs, their program experiences and help pinpoint areas where youth may benefit from additional support.
WCW researchers participated in a study, led by Dr. Valora Washington and under the auspices of the Bessie Tartt Wilson Children’s Foundation, to evaluate the child care voucher system in Massachusetts.
Studying the Effectiveness of Literacy Intervention
The CLLIP Research and Evaluation Project is designed to assess the impact of a literacy intervention for low-income poor performing school districts in the state of Ohio. Longitudinal data consisting of standardized literacy assessments, and surveys from students (preschool through 6th grade), parents, and teachers are analyzed and evaluated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the CLLIP intervention.
The project involves a needs assessment of child and adolescent refugee mental health services in New Hampshire and utilizes community dialogue strategies for integrating youth, family, provider, school and community knowledge and expertise towards addressing refugee mental health needs especially as it relates to trauma and in the context of resettlement.
This program brings together a working group of lawyers and jurists
from Asia to focus on law reform in the region. The working group will
examine the role that gender-based strategic litigation can play in
advancing equality, non-discrimination, and human rights.
Through this project we will develop and pilot-test a new family court advocacy training curriculum for service providers who work with battered immigrant and minority women. This project is intended to directly affect the lives of battered immigrant women by empowering them with substantive, strategic knowledge.
This project connected high-level leaders from different cities and states to educate them on the dynamic landscape of after-school programs. in hopes of directing the influence, funding, and high expectations of these leaders towards a "critical mass" of associated initiatives across the country.
A Collaborative Multi-Level Experimental Evaluation
The goal of this study is to increase the capacity of schools to prevent Dating Violence/Harassment (DV/H) by evaluating the effectiveness of current multi-level DV/H prevention programming in middle schools within a large urban school district.
This project explores the ways in which states attempt to regulate consensual adolescent sexual behavior through criminal law. In the end, the researchers hope to encourage a close-in-age exemption for Massachusetts, which currently is one of a small number of states that do not have any such exemption.
Sexual Violence/Harassment Prevention Programs in Middle Schools
This study is designed to help increase the capacity of programs
to prevent sexual violence and harassment. The long-term goal/objective
of this study is to help prevent intimate partner violence,
sexual violence, and sexual harassment by employing the most
rigorous
methods to evaluate strategies for altering the violence-supportive
attitudes and norms of youth.
This project is a multi-faceted engagement with Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts to conduct an evaluation of the Get Real middle school sexual education curriculum.
The project combines
out-of-school time (OST) professional advisors, the National Institute on Out-of-School
Time (NIOST), and NASA experts from across the agency to use research-based
strategies to develop afterschool activity guides adapted from NASA Planetary
Science formal education curricula.
Peggy McIntosh offers presentations, workshops, and consulting on: white privilege and privilege systems in general, diversifying organizational thinking, gender-fair and multicultural curricula, diversifying teaching methods, and feelings of fraudulence.
The workshops, courses, trainings, and publications at the Institute utilize the Relational-Cultural Model of development, which focuses on 'growth-fostering relationships' as central to positive human development.
Early Care and Education and School Readiness: Massachusetts
Researchers focus on aspects of school readiness, including social and language development, along with other data such as hours in care, so as to better understand the ways in which a child's growth is influenced by situational factors.
Assessment of Early Care and Education in Massachusetts
This group of inter-related research projects seeks to understand the state of early care and education in Massachusetts and make recommendations for quality outcomes.
This research project addresses a critical issue by examining the overlap of bullying perpetration/victimization and sexual violence in order to inform sexual violence prevention in US schools.
This long-term program has brought national attention to the importance of children's out-of-school time using research, training and advocacy to strengthen children's emotional, physical, and social development.
The National Institute on Out-of-School Time will partner with The Forum for Youth Investment as champions for action with the Career Pathway's sites in San Diego and Long Beach, California. This will include leading research aspects of the project as well as working to anticipate the site's needs for information, support and tools in a variety of areas.
Early Environments and the Development of Children
This study, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, seeks to determine the relationship between children's early experiences and their developmental outcomes.
Social, Emotional and Academic Learning: K-5th Grade
Open Circle is a
comprehensive, grade-differentiated social, emotional and academic learning
program for grades K-5 children, their teachers, administrators, other school
staff, parents and other caregivers. By helping schools implement Open Circle, the
program fosters the development of relationships that support safe, caring and
respectful learning communities of children and adults.
The Primary goal of the Out of Harm's Way (OHW) Initiative is to address the escalating violence in a subset of middle schools in the Boston Public Schools by offering comprehensive services and care, and increasing the participation of students in after school programming. Wellesley Centers for Women and the National Institute on Out-of-School Time would perform as the project evaluator.
The FasTracKids Research Study is a 19-month international study aimed at examining the link between participation in FasTracKids enrichment programs and child outcomes (children 4 and 5 years old). FasTracKids Enrichment Centers offer a variety of classes and activities designed to promote early learning, develop creative thinking and problem solving, build verbal communication, promote leadership and personal growth, and encourage a lifelong love of learning.
The is a secondary analysis of data collected over the long-term to determine how physical activity benefits the overall health and well-being of children over time. This study will focus on the NICHD’s Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development data.
This national, multi-site research study aims to test the effectiveness and generalizability of a cognitive-behavioral intervention for preventing depressive disorders in at-risk adolescent offspring of parents with depression.
This project in collaboration with UNICEF addresses, through research and analysis, the way in which women's and children's rights intersect with legislative reform.
This project provides a comprehensive picture of the quality of Boston's Early Care and Education programs for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, in both centers and family child care homes.
This Grant Program supports research towards comprehending the relationship between healthy child development and the role of culture and society. Researchers from universities and research institutions in the U.S are eligible to apply.
The SEED Project, a staff development equity project for educators,
prepares teachers to lead their own year-long seminars in public and
private schools on making curricula, teaching methods, and school climates
more gender-fair, multicultural, and international.
Connections Between Depression and Sibling Relationships
This project aims to explicate the relation between parental depression, parenting styles, parent/child relationships, sibling relationship quality and internalizing and externalizing outcomes in children.
Providing Support to Ford Foundation's Grantees Working on Women's Rights and Anti-Discrimination
This project seeks to build on our work with partners in China and
embark on a series of programs aimed at strengthening
equality and non-discrimination in the areas of sex, residency and disability.
Girls' Ongoing Success in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (SISTEM)
While girls do well in science and math courses in middle school, they are less likely to enroll in higher-level STEM courses in high school, thus few will choose these subjects for a college major, and even fewer will complete such a major or go on to pursue a STEM career. The increased knowledge generated by this study will inform ways to increase the participation of girls and other under-represented groups (e.g., racial and ethnic minorities, low-income youth) in sustained STEM study and employment.
The Women’s Sports Leadership Project has the overarching goal of
collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information on gender
disparities in organized athletics for the purpose of articulating a
new vision of female leadership that legitimizes and connects athletic
experience to off-the-field skills.
Battered women of color often report that they do not receive fair treatment in family courts and that the courts’ insufficiencies can lead to devastating consequences for them and for their children.
Guiding States, Localities and Organizations toward a Framework for Policy and Practice
The Career Pathways Project will lead to a set of guidelines promoting success and strengthening the work force for afterschool providers towards stability preparation, support and commitment to the well-being and empowerment of youth.
The FasTracKids Research Study is a 19-month international study aimed at examining the link between participation in FasTracKids enrichment programs and child outcomes (children 4 and 5 years old). FasTracKids Enrichment Centers offer a variety of classes and activities designed to promote early learning, develop creative thinking and problem solving, build verbal communication, promote leadership and personal growth, and encourage a lifelong love of learning.