Talking About Sex: Extended Family As Educators and Allies
Jennifer Grossman, Ph.D., is currently principal investigator of an R21 award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)—Adolescent Communication with Family and Reproductive Health, which includes the first comprehensive assessment of teens’ sexuality communication with extended family and its associations with sexual behavior as well as an exploration of extended family approaches to talking with teens about sex. Grossman is also principal investigator of an R03 award from NICHD—Risk Behaviors Among Offspring of Teen Parents: Effects of Parenting on the Next Generation, which addresses the potential of maternal and paternal parenting to reduce the high risk of early sex and teen pregnancy for offspring of teen parents. (The R21 grant mechanism is intended to encourage exploratory/developmental research by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of project development. The R03 grant mechanism supports small research projects that can be carried out in a short period of time with limited resources.)
Collaborations and Communication: A School-Based Depression Prevention & Intervention Program
Depression is a common problem among adolescents. The average age for a first onset of depression is 15, and about 20 percent of teens will have experienced significant depressive symptoms by the time they are 18. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents in the U.S. Research indicates that 16 percent of U.S. adolescents report seriously considering suicide in a one-year period, and eight percent of U.S. adolescents report making a suicide attempt. Studies have found that more than 50 percent of adolescents who committed suicide had a mood disorder at the time. Building on her ongoing depression prevention and intervention work with adolescents, Gladstone and her clinical research team are working with two Greater Boston towns to pilot in-school screenings.
Parent and Peer Influences on Social Media Use in Early Adolescence: Implications for Psychosocial and Behavioral Health
Family communication about sex can reduce risky sexual behaviors, but most studies focus only on the teen-parent dyad.
Three of the leading gender-focused and policy research centers in the United States brought together an outstanding and diverse group of guests and speakers from the spheres of policymaking, research, business, labor, philanthropy, and advocacy in June for the policy research forum in Washington, D.C., “From Persistence to Power: Facts, Truth, & Equity for Women,” featuring keynote addresses by Maggie Hassan, U.S. Senator representing New Hampshire, and Charlotte Burrows, Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2016
The Olympics may be—on the surface—about international goodwill, but they are more baldly about political competition. They also offer a report card on gender equity progress. One could credit the rise of women’s athletics in the U.S., not to the passage of Title IX in 1972, but to the Cold War realization that the medal gap between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was essentially the difference in women’s participation.
The Olympics may be—on the surface—about international goodwill, but they are more baldly about political competition. They also offer a report card on gender equity progress. One could credit the rise of women’s athletics in the U.S., not to the passage of Title IX in 1972, but to the Cold War realization that the medal gap between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was essentially the difference in women’s participation.
Sari Pekkela Kerr, Ph.D, senior research scientist/economist, Wellesley Centers for Women
U.S. Does Not Have Paid (Federal) Family LeaveAlthough research shows clear benefits of family leave, the U.S. remains the only developed country that does not offer paid family leave for its workers. This hampers women’s work efforts and endangers the wellbeing of children.
Sari Pekkela Kerr, Ph.D, senior research scientist/economist, Wellesley Centers for Women
U.S. Is Lagging Behind in Skilled Immigration PolicyResearch demonstrates highly positive impacts of skilled immigration resulting in countries competing globally for talent. Although many countries are continuously introducing new policies to attract more skilled workers, the U.S. immigration policy is in a gridlock with little progress.
April Pattavina, Ph.D., senior scholar, Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research Initiative, Wellesley Centers for Women
Victims of Domestic Violence Often Face Housing ProblemsThe physical, psychological, and economic consequences for victims of domestic violence (DV) and their families have been well documented, and although recent federal legislation provides certain housing protections for some DV victims, many women and their families remain at great risk for homelessness and ongoing violence.
Wellesley Centers for Women Welcomes Two New Research Scientists
The work of Research Scientist LaShawnda Lindsay-Dennis focuses on factors influencing the academic experiences of African American girls and young women—including the teaching and the curricula presented to them and the culture, aspirations, and expectations they bring to their classrooms.
Wellesley Centers for Women Welcomes Two New Research Scientists
Research Scientist Erin Johnson is a microeconomist who studies questions in health care such as how physicians respond to financial incentives when making treatment decisions. In addition to measuring impacts of various factors on treatment, her work is interested in the resultant impacts on patient health, which she measures using patient diagnoses and other health indicators. Some of her current work examines how the physician-patient relationship affects treatment.
The Massachusetts QRIS Validation Study, led by Joanne Roberts, Ph.D., in collaboration with UMass Donahue Institute, involved the collection of quality observations and child assessments in ECE programs participating in the QRIS system.
The project builds upon and expands both the research-based knowledge about justice-involved women’s concerns and the practical lessons of networking and advocacy learned over the period of five years
State Monitoring Activities with Tracking, Synthesis and Analysis, and Technical Assistance in Implementing a Successful State
Open Circle will develop, pilot, and assess new gratitude components for its student curriculum and teacher professional development program.
This study will document the current landscape (the breadth and differences) of campus approaches to investigations and adjudication of sexual assault.
Let’s Talk about #Sex by Jennifer Grossman, Ph.D.
Think about it—in many of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, there was little family conversation about sex. Often, for religious and cultural reasons, family communication about sex was considered taboo. Many teens did not know what sex was or how to protect themselves from pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections (STIs). This has changed in many families, as cultural expectations have shifted and there is growing recognition that teenparent sexuality communication can protect teens from early pregnancy and STIs. Many parents also have reflected on the potentially harmful effects that ignorance about sexuality had on their own teenage years and lived experiences. Parents now often commit to talking with their children about sex, breaking from traditions of family silence from past generations, as a way to support their children’s healthy development.
by Ellen Gannett, M.Ed. and Elizabeth Starr, M.Ed., National Institute on Out-of-School Time
As expectations for high-quality afterschool and outof-school time (OST) programs continue to rise, a skilled, stable and committed OST workforce is critically important. Yet supports for youth workers, and resulting staff quality, remain uneven at best due in part to a highly fragmented landscape. Compensation remains stagnant and opportunities for professional advancement and public recognition remain practically non-existent.
The March April 2016 issue of Women’s Review of Books (WRB) was quite different from the publication’s usual offering. Amy Hoffman, M.F.A., editor-in-chief, included a special section featuring WRB writers and some other favorite feminists sharing recommendations of what they thought the next U.S. president should be reading, in preparation for taking office. Additionally, Cartoon Editor Jennifer Camper illustrated the special section and added brevity with her artwork. The list that resulted is fascinating—and could probably keep even the most well-read person productively busy for the entire next presidential term. But it wasn’t quite what Hoffman expected.
By Tracy R.G. Gladstone, Ph.D., WCW associate director and senior research scientist, director of the Robert S. and Grace W. Stone Primary Prevention Initiatives
According to the World Health Organization, depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide—it is the most common psychiatric disorder in the U.S., and is particularly common among lower income populations, and among women beginning in adolescence. The average age of onset for depression is 15, and about 20 percent of all people will have experienced an episode of depression by the end of adolescence. Youth depression is associated with a host of negative and long-term consequences, including poorer school performance, difficult peer and family relationships, increased risk of substance abuse, and poorer functional outcomes in adulthood. Of particular note is the connection between youth depression and suicide. Although not all people who commit suicide were depressed at the time, depression and suicidal behavior are indeed linked. Suicide is a tremendous problem in the U.S. and is the second leading cause of death among American adolescents.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2016
By Jennifer Grossman Ph.D.
Think about it—in many of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, there was little family conversation about sex. Often, for religious and cultural reasons, family communication about sex was considered taboo. Many teens did not know what sex was or how to protect themselves from pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections (STIs). This has changed in many families, as cultural expectations have shifted and there is growing recognition that teenparent sexuality communication can protect teens from early pregnancy and STIs. Many parents also have reflected on the potentially harmful effects that ignorance about sexuality had on their own teenage years and lived experiences. Parents now often commit to talking with their children about sex, breaking from traditions of family silence from past generations, as a way to support their children’s healthy development.
This initiative is designed to conduct and disseminate research that meaningfully addresses the causes and consequences of gender-based violence and the social, health and justice system responses to violent crime and victimization.
Examining the impacts of immigrant entrepreneurs.
WCW prepares a white paper and two research reviews to frame the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s approach to two-generation strategies related to advancing family economic security and children’s education and learning simultaneously
NIOST collaborates with BridgeUp: STEM to study the delivery of Computational Science (CS) and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning experiences in the context of the education, science, and research resources of the AMNH to a cohort of New York City high school girls.
Peggy McIntosh, Ph.D., founder of the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Seeking Educational Equity & Diversity presented at a conference on women’s studies in China and other parts of the world held at Capital Normal University in Beijing, June 26-28, 2015. This program was hosted by The Center for Studies in Chinese Women’s Culture, the Forum on Women’s Literature in Chinese, and the Women’s Literature Commission of the China World Association for Chinese Literatures. McIntosh delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the conference which focused on women’s studies.
Tracy Gladstone, Ph.D., also traveled to Santiago, Chile in April 2015 where she presented at the inaugural symposium on the Prevention and Early Interventions in Mental Health focused on “Prevention of Depression: Translating Research Into Practice.” This is the first version of a series of biennial conferences that aims to develop new and/or updated strategies and action plans, and seek to broaden the support for evidence-based prevention and promotion in mental health in Chile and Latin America; it was organized by the Child And Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, Department of Psychiatry, University of Chile. Gladstone presented on the CATCH-IT program which utilizes an internet-based interactive system to prevent the onset of a depressive episode in at-risk teens.
Although surgical repair of fistula is associated with improvements in women’s quality of life and mental health, researchers have found even after being treated surgically to repair their fistula, many women still have difficulty engaging in family and community life. Tracy Gladstone, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Stone Primary Prevention Initiatives at WCW, traveled to Gondar, Ethiopia where she trained nurses to implement a new evidence-based depression prevention program being piloted at the University of Gondar Fistula Center. After initial planning meetings in Spring 2014, Gladstone and her team conducted onsite interviews in December with clinicians as well as patients who shared their knowledge about fistula; they talked about their current social support and coping strategies and expressed an interest in learning skills to manage their worries and feel better. After developing a protocol, Gladstone returned to Ethiopia in March 2015 and trained the clinicians (pictured below), providing follow-up support via web-based communications as the hospital team readied for implementation. This spring, data from the first two cohorts who took part in the cognitive behavioral therapy program, and from the clinicians who led the initiative at the hospital, have resulted in promising positive outcomes—depression symptom scores decreased substantially. Further program details will be included in the Fall/Winter issue of the Research & Action Report.
Layli Maparyan, Ph.D., Katherine Stone Kaufmann ’67 Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) and Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, engaged with diverse youth groups in Berlin, Germany in January 2015 to discuss the meaning of Black History Month and how it can cultivate social change leadership, not only in the U.S. but also around the world. Sponsored by the U.S. Embassy Berlin, the week-long tour offered Maparyan the opportunity to deliver a lecture, “Building Cultures of Inclusion Across Race, Ethnicity, and Religion: Comparing Notes Across the U.S. and Germany and Cultivating Social Change Leadership,” and engage in discussions with students and faculty of the John F. Kennedy Institute at the Free University; at University of Stuttgart; and at Freiburg University. Within the framework of the “womanism” praxis, Maparyan outlined non-oppositional problem-solving tools and illustrated how simple, personal acts can create amity and inclusion from the personal all the way up to the institutional level. In Bonn, Maparyan presented “A Womanist Perspective on Development” at the University of Bonn/ZEF, and “Building Cultures of Inclusion across Race, Ethnicity, and Religion: Comparing Notes across the U.S. and Germany and Cultivating Social Change Leadership” at Bonn University. Her trip concluded with Black History Month: A Storytelling Evening at Jugendkirche and a community meeting at the Anne Frank Educational Centre.
Research & Action Report,Spring/Summer 2015
Remembering Beijing: Reflections on the 20th Anniversary of the Beijing Declaration / Platform for Action and CSW59This year we commemorate the 20th anniversary of an important milestone in the history of the global women’s movement: The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA). The BPfA was the outcome document of the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women, which took place in Beijing, China, in September, 1995, along with the parallel NGO Forum in Huairou, China. The U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women represented the culmination of two decades of international women’s mobilizations (in Mexico City, Copenhagen, and Nairobi) and announced the formation of a truly global women’s movement. The Beijing/Huairou events were attended by over 50,000 people. Thus, this 20th anniversary is an important time of both celebration and reflection, not only for those who attended the events, but also for all those who care about and work on the issues enshrined in the BPfA.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2015
By April Pattavina, Ph.D. and Linda M. Williams, Ph.D.
The Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research InitiativeThe Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research Initiative, led by Co-Directors Linda M. Williams, Ph.D., and April Pattavina, Ph.D., senior research scientists, was recently launched at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW). Longtime followers of the Centers may recognize Williams, who was director of research at the Stone Center at WCW from 1996 to 2005. In that role, she led the Navy Family Study, a comprehensive approach to understanding the factors that affect successful and unsuccessful outcomes for Navy families involved with the family advocacy office, as well as the outcomes for adults and children exposed to domestic violence, child physical abuse, or child sexual abuse. Williams co-directed the National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center and continued her research on the long-term consequences and memories of child sexual abuse. Pattavina comes to WCW from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, where she collaborated with Williams and colleague Melissa S. Morabito, Ph.D., associate professor, on the national multi-site study of sexual assault case attrition through the criminal justice system that is described in the following interview. She brings an interest in applying advances in information and computer technology to the study of social problems. She has been invited to give presentations and workshops on the use of administrative data for policy analysis and received an award from The Boston Foundation for using data to drive community change.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2015
By Andrew Levack, M.P.H.
Working with Boys and Men to Promote Gender EqualityEvery day I look at the bookshelf next to my desk which displays one my favorite bumper stickers. Its slogan, developed by the Wellesley Centers for Women, states that “a world that is good for women is good for everyone.” As someone who helps develop, implement, and evaluate prevention programs that work with young men, l couldn’t agree more. When we challenge sexism and disrupt patriarchy, everyone benefits—including boys and men.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2015
Virtual Harassment & Bullying in the College YearsGiven the immense public attention on cyber bullying amongst teens and that social media is intricately tied to adolescent daily behavior, it’s not surprising that the vast majority of studies on cyber bullying are conducted on youth under 18. A recent review1 found that the highest incidence of cyber bullying in youth occurs during seventh and eighth grades—incidence that increases from elementary school, but decreases into the high school years. One might predict that since cyber bullying wanes in high school, that in college it would continue to wane. It was only until Pew’s recent study on online harassment in 2014—which demonstrated that the cyber harassment rate in young adults aged 18-24 can reach rates as high as 70 percent—that we can now see that young adulthood deserves more attention, academic inquiry, and public scrutiny.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2015
Sari Pekkala Kerr, Ph.D., arrived at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) in 2010 as a deeply experienced senior researcher/micro economist. Her expertise and research accomplishments have significantly broadened the Centers’ reach into the economic implications of various government policies and marketplace realities, often with a particular focus on gender. As a micro economist, she typically studies the effects of such policies and realities on the lives of individuals, families, and children. She also brings to her work in the U.S. significant contributions from her continuing research of related issues in Europe, especially her native Finland. As a social democracy, that nation maintains a vast body of demographic statistics that has enabled her to study and quantify effects of various policies on millions of specific individuals. In some of her current work in the U.S., she seeks as far as possible to achieve an analogous breadth of scope.
Monica Driggers, research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women, has been working on court and criminal justice reform for nearly a decade. Driggers joined the team working on the Battered Mothers’ Testimony Project in 2002 and was one of the authors of its ground-breaking report released that year. She continues to advocate for the reforms proposed in the report. Her current projects include research and reform of parole processes in Massachusetts and an investigation of female prisoners’ connections to their children.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2013
Interview with Beatrice Achieng Nas, BSC
Beatrice Achieng Nas, the founder and director of a non-governmental organization in Uganda, is a Community Solutions Program Fellow through the International Research & Exchanges (IREX) Board and a Visiting Scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women for the fall 2013 semester.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2012
By Connie Gunderson, Ph.D.
Trafficking in human beings is the second most lucrative illegal activity worldwide. Human trafficking is an extreme example of social injustice perpetuated by dominant-subordinate attitudes that condone violence, resulting in significant suffering for individuals and harm to societies (Gunderson, 2012). It is a serious human rights violation and a low-risk, high-profit crime that is well hidden, underreported, under-prosecuted, and where trafficked persons experience extreme forms of physical and psychological violence and death.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2012
Wellesley College has joined the U.S. State Department and its sister colleges in presenting the inaugural Women in Public Service Summer Institute on Wellesley’s campus June 11-22, 2012. An integral part of the Women in Public Service Project, the pilot institute is a first-of-its-kind, two-week program that is training the next generation of women leaders.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2011
Interview by Susan Lowry Rardin
A lawyer armed with the law in the form of three UN Human Rights Conventions, Rangita de Silva-de Alwis, S.J.D. seeks to amplify women’s efforts on behalf of equality and justice. One of her recent leadership events, organized with Morocco’s Ministry of the Interior, was the “Rabat Roundtable: Women Leading Change in the Arab and Muslim Communities,” which was held late in the 2011 Arab Spring and involved women leaders from the Middle East/North Africa region. Her strategies, which focus especially on Asia and the Muslim/Arab communities, feature the building of networks of women’s organizations and the linking of interest groups—especially through the power of those international human rights Conventions, as she describes in this interview.
Hey NHS/WMS/KMS is a three-part program to address adolescent depression throughout the Natick Public Schools. The program will make an effort to increase mental health literacy in the Natick school community, and to prepare the community for a broad-based screening and intervention approach to the problem of youth depression/suicidal behavior.
This project is designed to support children's social-emotional and cognitive development.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2014
An organization’s theory of change helps explain the process by which that organization’s activities contribute to desired outcomes. At WCW, we operate with a shared understanding that research, theory, and action all make vital contributions to the social-change process. High-quality research provides data about what is, tests theories about why, and evaluates what works, allowing us to see beyond opinion, to raise awareness about important issues, and make better investments in policies, programs, and practices that are effective. When change makers, decision makers, and opinion leaders are informed by rigorous research, their initiatives are more likely to be successful.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2014
In late October, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, the Wellesley Centers for Women, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and ETR announced new findings published in the Journal of School Health that show Planned Parenthood’s middle-school curriculum, Get Real: Comprehensive Sex Education That Works, helps kids wait until they are older to have sex. It is particularly effective for boys.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2014
Sumru Erkut, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women; she served as an Associate Director from 1995 to 2014. Her research has encompassed variations in the course of child and adult development, women and leadership, and educational program evaluation both in the U.S. and abroad.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2014
by Jondou Chase Chen, Ph.D.
with Gail Cruise-Roberson, B.A., Emmy Howe, M.Ed., and Emily Style , M.A.
Jondou Chase Chen, Ph.D. is an associate director of The National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum. Chen has been a SEED leader since 2003 and a SEED summer staff member since 2005. He is an associate in the department of Human Development at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he teaches, advises, and provides research and grant support. He co-facilitates a graduate-level SEED course, as well as a monthly SEED support group for recently trained New York City-area SEED leaders.
In fall 2015, the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) launched the Justice and Gender- Based Violence Research (JGBVR) Initiative to build on its work advancing the role that research plays in improving the lives of women and girls, families and communities. Led by Senior Research Scientist Linda M. Williams, Ph.D., and an interdisciplinary group of collaborators, the JGBVR team conducts and disseminates research that meaningfully addresses the causes and consequences of gender-based violence and the social, health, and justice system responses to violent crime and victimization. To do this work, the initiative builds relationships with partners in the community, the criminal justice system, governmental and non-governmental organizations, international partners, and other researchers and institutes. Nine months later, the team has made great strides in linking its high-quality, gender-informed research with real action to improve the lives of women and girls in all roles of the criminal justice system—victims, offenders, workers, and policymakers.
A Special Women’s Review of Books Feature
Last year, Amy Hoffman, M.F.A., editor-in-chief, Women’s Review of Books (WRB) began thinking about the organizing by Black Lives Matter against police violence and other forms of racist oppression, the intersectional politics of this new movement, and its similarities and differences—in politics and strategies—from previous organizing. She decided to bring together (virtually, through email) a few older and younger Black women activists to talk about their experiences and ideas. A special roundtable discussion with Demita Frazier, J.D., Stacey Patton, Ph.D., Barbara Smith, and Mecca Jamilah Sullivan was featured in the March/April 2017 issue of WRB.
Research & Action Report Spring/Summer 2014
The 58th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UN CSW) was held this past winter, but the work continues. After two weeks devoted to the assessment of whether the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are working for women and girls and trying to figure out what the post-2015 development agenda is going to look like, one thing is clear: We aren’t going to make real progress without good data.
Research & Action Report Spring/Summer 2014
Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) maintains a strong legacy of research that can accelerate social change. Building on that, Kates teaches and practices participatory research—which is research that actively involves multiple groups of stakeholders on the issues being examined. Whenever possible, she includes representatives of the low-income women she’s studying.
The Massachusetts Women’s Justice Network mentioned in this interview is comprised of researchers; state legislators and/or their aides; personnel from the Department of Corrections and the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security; representatives of the Department of Public Health (which administers the state’s substance abuse services); the Office of Probation and Community Corrections; women’s commissions; women’s shelters; the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other advocacy groups; and formerly incarcerated women.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2013
Wellesley Centers for Women connections grow in Washington, D.C.
The Wellesley Centers for Women partnered with American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) to study gender equity in leadership opportunities in the nonprofit American theater.
This project will evaluate the Boston Summer Learning Program.
This study evaluates the Regular AfterZone and AfterZone Summer Scholars programs.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2013
Trafficking is one of the hottest topics in the global reform world these days, but it is increasingly unclear what is meant by “trafficking.” It is often hard to know who is trafficked and even more difficult to count these populations. Moreover, simply identifying trafficked victims and traffickers is difficult; for purposes of this article, I will be discussing issues related to women only. A woman may migrate in search of a job and end up doing sex work in exploitative conditions. A migrant may intend to take on one kind of work and find herself in another, or go back and forth between sex work and other forms of work depending on circumstances.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2013
Interview with Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant
Serving as a Visiting Scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women during her sabbatical year from DePauw University, Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant is pursuing her interest in women’s responses to their cultures’ expectations for them. Her current research focus is the lives of the women of the Progressive Era in the U.S. who established settlement houses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a side note, she finds it interesting that Harriet Alleyne Rice, Wellesley College’s first African American graduate (1887), spent some time as a medical practitioner at Jane Addams’s Hull-House, Chicago’s first social settlement house.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2013
By Megan Kellett, B.A.
Open Circle, a program of the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year. A social and emotional learning (SEL) program for students in Kindergarten through Grade 5, Open Circle is dedicated to providing children with the skills they need to recognize and manage their emotions, establish positive relationships, make responsible decisions, develop care and concern for others, and handle challenging situations constructively.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2013
Among Nan Stein’s contributions to the literature on sexual harassment and gender violence in schools are the first survey in the country on peer-to-peer sexual harassment in schools (1979-80); her book, Classrooms and Courtrooms: Facing Sexual Harassment in K-12 Schools; and three teaching guides1. Currently, she is working on the third stage of a study, Shifting Boundaries, which evaluates classroom lessons and school-wide interventions in middle schools intended to reduce sexual harassment and precursors to teen dating violence.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2013
When we think about employment and health, we often think about high risk jobs and occupational safety. The recent deaths of first responders in Massachusetts and Texas highlight these serious concerns. However, many workers are exposed to unhealthy conditions that, while not lethal, seriously affect their health.
Funding will support refining plans for growing and scaling Open Circle to serve large school districts across the U.S.
Charmaraman will interview a subset of 30 participants from the larger online survey study of over 1,300 young people aged 12 – 25 from the U.S. and abroad.
Implementation and dissemination of physical activity program for out-of-school time
This investigation will longitudinally explore continuity and change in teen-family sexual communication over teens' transition to high school.
The purpose of this online nationwide survey study is to understand how different types of media (i.e. social, technological, televised) impact young people’s sense of social identities, including racial/ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, political attitudes, and civic engagement.
This work revolves around helping to build and define the burgeoning field of womanist studies.
Ongoing since 1985
Study of working conditions and impact on health
Working Conditions and Health is a group of inter-related research projects with a common interest in understanding the relation of working conditions to the physical and mental health of workers.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2012
By Kate Price, M.A.
As a society, we often seem to care more about protecting our cultural ideal of childhood innocence than about meeting the actual needs of real-life children—especially commercially sexually exploited children. To fit the ideal of purity, children require high levels of social capital—preferably, they’re white, middle or upper class, and heterosexual. They have limited or no sexual experience, enjoy secure health care, housing, and education, and they live within a supportive nuclear family. In my experience, children living without access to such resources are too often labeled “bad kids” and blamed for “choosing” to exist outside of this ideal.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2012
Interview by Susan Lowry Rardin
This is a fateful time for the United States. Two distinct visions for the country were pitted against each other in the recent elections. Clearly, women’s rights are still in question; civil rights are seen by some as irrelevant; and the federal budget deficit looms without a consensus as to its importance or how to fix it.
Public policy decisions, which often seem about war and the budget, are, in fact, always about women as well. Though we must focus on “women’s issues,” we must not lose sight of the importance for women of economic and military issues, Supreme Court and other judicial court appointments, and even environmental policies. As the Wellesley Centers for Women motto goes: “A world that is good for women is good for everyone.” - Jean Hardisty, Ph.D.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2012
by Ellen Gannett, M.Ed.
The current debate on the virtues, definition, and efficacy of expanded learning opportunities (ELO) is familiar and welcome. With over 30 years in the field, I have watched the landscape of the out-of-school time field twist and turn by the decade and I am seeing earlier ideas presented in new terminology. Back in 1982, when the first director of the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST), Michelle Seligson and co-author, James Levine wrote the inaugural School Age Child Care: An Action Manual, their guiding premise was that “solutions are really to be found at the community level, and that they can best be developed by mobilizing people with similar interests to help one another.” The book emphasized a model of service delivery called “the partnership” between schools and other community groups and agencies. While it has taken decades to get here, there is promise in ELO if we can overcome previous barriers.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2012
Wellesley College President H. Kim Bottomly announced on April 23, 2012, the appointment of Layli Maparyan, Ph.D., as the new Katherine Stone Kaufmann ’67 Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), one of the nation’s largest and most influential organizations conducting scholarly research and developing action programs centered on women’s and girls’ perspectives. Maparyan will assume her new responsibilities effective July 1, 2012.
The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of grade-differentiated dating violence and sexual harassment prevention curricula.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2011
Original research was a key focus at this year’s Intensive Institute held in June by the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute (JBMTI) at the Wellesley Centers for Women. All Institute attendees paticipated in a skills-based workshop, “Creating Connection in a Sea of Disconnection: Research Informed Clinical Practice,” with Mary Tantillo, Ph.D., Jennifer Sanftner, Ph.D., and Renee Spencer, Ed.D. The seminar was based on Spencer’s work on mentoring and on Tantillo’s and Sanftner’s recent article, “Measuring Perceived Mutuality in Women: Further Validation of the Connection-Disconnection Scale,” published in the Journal of Creativity in Mental Health.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2011
by Amy Hoffman, M.F.A.
In its September 11, 2011, issue, the New York Times Magazine brought together a group of pundits for a roundtable discussion, moderated by reporter Scott Malcolmson, of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: Michael Ignatieff, James Traub, David Rieff, Paul Berman, and Ian Buruma. Scott, Michael, James, David, Paul, and Ian: not a woman—nor a person of color—in the bunch. This particular group had been invited because each had published a significant article previously in the magazine about the issues under discussion—which doesn’t justify the choice; if anything, it makes it worse. Not only were women absent from the magazine’s 9/11 anniversary discussion, but we weren’t included in the debates of the past ten years!
This project will create a Massachusetts Women's Justice Network and develop a model program for women at risk of involvement in the criminal justice system.
The goal of this collaborative project is to invite public discourse about overcoming barriers to educational equity for girls of color in order to affect educational policy and practice. The specific goal of the project was to create a multi-media strategy in two phases in order to stimulate conversation almongst multiple constituencies.
This project looks at two national datasets to explore the relations among child, family, employment, and program characteristics and parental choice.
This project will examine the role of firms in shaping high-skilled immigration to the United States. In particular, we exploit the combined employer - employee data of the most prominent US high tech firms to evaluate the extent to which foreign born science and engineering workers are employed, and how the work force composition is affected by the inflows of immigrant scientists. This research is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2011
Sari Pekala Kerr, Ph.D., who arrived at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) in 2010, brings not only experience in economic research and consulting in the U.S. to her work at WCW, but also expertise in analyzing economic effects of government policies in her homeland of Finland. That expertise became possible because of Finland’s remarkable record of demographic statistics, which reflect—in a breadth of detail that can amaze many—the experience of three generations of Finns. The Centers expect many of Kerr’s contributions to benefit from that research. Her newest project—supported by the Centers’ 35th Anniversary Fund—will study how maternity leave policies in both Finland and the United States affect women’s subsequent employment.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2011
by Peggy McIntosh, Ph.D.
U.S. education is in trouble . Many types of school reform have been proposed and tried, but most are not working. They are not creating real solutions to problems. I believe that education reform will continue to falter unless it treats teachers as whole human beings, not as neutral pass-throughs, or as failing parts of machinery. Too often teachers are punished, disrespected, and excluded from conversations on what might actually make education successful for all of our students. What teachers know, what they can contribute, is left out of most efforts to reform education. We cannot change our schools, our systems, without respecting the deep experience of teachers.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2011
Last year, Boston Public Schools Superintendent Carol Johnson identified 14 “Turnaround Schools,” described as significantly underperforming and in need of monitoring, support, and reform. Twelve of these schools were also designated by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as “Level 4” schools: those with consistently low scores and no substantial improvement over a four-year period in both English/ Language Arts and Mathematics on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).
Evaluation of a primary care/Internet-based depression prevention program for at-risk adolescents and their families.
The goal of this project is to produce a reliable and valid measure of teachers’ educational beliefs and knowledge of child development and ECE pedagogy that can be used to validate the effectiveness of professional development programs and interventions, as well as, to provide valuable feedback in applied settings regarding ECE teachers’ professional development needs and classroom appropriateness.
This research project analyzes the effects of family leave policies in the United States and Finland.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2010
For many years, research done by the Work, Families, and Children Research Group at Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) has provided policy makers, community leaders, and other scholars with data, commentary, and testimony concerning the effects on family members of many factors, including working conditions, poverty, the division of labor at home, and early care and education. Nancy Marshall, Ed.D., who joined WCW in 1985, now leads the group, which includes Wendy Wagner Robeson, Ed.D., and Joanne Roberts, Ph.D., senior research scientists at WCW.
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2010
On October 26, 2010, as this commentary went to press, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights issued a “Dear Colleague Letter” to schools that clarifies the relationship between bullying and discriminating harassment under civil rights laws: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201010.html.
The recent tragic cases of Phoebe Prince and Carl Wal ker -Hoover , two Massachusetts students who took their own lives after being allegedly bullied by their peers, force us to look carefully at the ways in which school personnel are treating and framing student-to-student interactions. I want to propose that, in fact, both children were sexually harassed by their peers; and to call it "bullying" minimizes what they endured.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2010
On an almost daily basis, I see, read, or hear a story about how women can improve their careers, advance in their pay levels, and avoid the stereotypes associated with women in the workforce. As a feminist, I am interested in these developments and am always rooting for women to pioneer new positions and achieve new forms of advancement.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2010
Open Circle, a program of the Wellesley Centers for Women, works with elementary school communities in New England, New York, and New Jersey to help children become ethical people, contributing citizens, and successful learners. This program helps foster the development of relationships that support safe, caring, and respectful learning communities of children and adults. The Open Circle team is currently updating its grade-differentiated curriculum to provide more support around bullying prevention and increase accessibility and applicability to urban communities. More details about these updates will be posted in the next issue of Research & Action Report.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2010
Reflections and perspectives from Amy Banks, M.D., JBMTI director of advanced training
“I am so glad you are offering the webinars. Twenty years ago I went to the Wednesday evening Stone Center Colloquia and loved them. But then I moved to Texas and had kids so I couldn’t travel. These allow me to feel a part of it again.”
These words were shared with me last October by a participant who attended the pilot webinar, “I Feel Your Pain,” offered by the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute (JBMTI) at the Wellesley Centers for Women. This webinar was part of a new lecture series, The Neurobiology of Connection. Clinical trainings are not new for the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute. We have been teaching Relational-Cultural Theory to mental health providers, educators, and social policy advocates throughout the United States and abroad for almost 30 years.
Research & Action Report, Spring/Summer 2010
with Georgia Hall, Ph.D.
With funding through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ’s Active Living Research Program , the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) at the Wellesley Centers for Women, has launched a one-year project designed to assess physical activity and healthy eating standards and practices in out-of-school time programs. A collaboration with the University of Massachusetts Boston and the YMCA of the USA, the project will look at out-of-school time programs that serve children and youth in grades K-12 during afternoons, evenings, holidays, and vacations. Programs serving low-income children of color will be a particular focus in the national sample studied. The project allows the investigators to initiate policy research that will assess current out-of-school physical activity and healthy eating policies and practices before new national policies are put in place.
Project directors Georgia Hall, Ph.D., senior research scientist at NIOST, and Jean Wiecha, Ph.D., associate professor in the UMass Boston department of exercise and health science, will work with Ellen Gannett, M.Ed., director of NIOST, and Barbara Roth, M.Ed., YMCA national director for youth and family programs, in carrying out the study.
This research study uses quantitative and qualitative data collection methods and multiple regression modeling to examine healthy eating and physical activity opportunities in a national sample of out-of-school time programs.
Research & Action Report Spring/Summer 2009
Rangita de Silva-de Alwis, LL.M., S.J.D., director of International Human Rights Policy Programs at the Wellesley Centers for Women, reflects on ways the Universal Declaration of Human Rights informs the Centers’ newest international work.
Susan McGee Bailey, Ph.D. has served as executive director of the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) since 1985. She was the principal author of the widely cited 1992 AAUW report, How Schools Shortchange Girls.
This past summer, few of us could escape the media’s relentless coverage of the controversy surrounding the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. Perhaps not surprisingly, the controversy centered on her racial background rather than on her long and impeccable record as a judge, or on her peers’ opinions of her abilities.
Michelle Porche, Ed.D., a senior research scientist at Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), studies academic achievement in literacy and science among young children and adolescents. She is especially interested in the influence of gender and socioemotional factors on the academic achievement of children from low-income families. More recently she has expanded her work to study the impact of trauma on learning and achievement. In addition to work at WCW, Porche spent ten years as a researcher on the longitudinal Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, where she received her doctorate. She is co-author of Is Literacy Enough? Pathways to Academic Achievement for Adolescents, which describes findings from the Home-School Study. In 2002 she was a corecipient of the International Reading Association’s Albert J. Harris Award for contributions in literacy research.
Starting a blog is a little like trying to find a seat at your favorite coffee shop during primetime. It is where people are at, but if you drape your sweater over a chair, will anyone notice that you’ve claimed this ground? If you post, will anyone read (besides the friends you’ve begged)? Will anyone care?
by Jean Kilbourne, WCW senior scholar
From the Spring/Summer 2009 Research & Action Report
Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D., senior scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women, is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on alcohol and tobacco advertising and the image of women in advertising. Her newest book, So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids, co-authored with Diane E. Levin, was published in 2008. Her book, Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, won the Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology in 2000. She is also known for her award-winning documentaries Killing Us Softly, Slim Hopes, and Calling the Shots.
In July, 2008 the Robert Bowne Foundation transferred the Afterschool Matters (ASM) initiative to the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) at the Wellesley Centers for Women. The four components of this comprehensive initiative are: (1) the Practitioner Fellowship Program, which provides an inquiry-based year-long research and writing professional development experience for out-of-school-time practitioners; (2) the Afterschool Matters journal, which disseminates findings and experiences of the Practitioner Fellows and other relevant research from the out-of-school-time field; (3) the Edmund A. Stanley, Jr. Research Grantee program to foster high-quality, cutting-edge research that has lasting impact on the field; and (4) the Research Roundtables, periodic forums for connecting research and practice.
NIOST’s goals in acquiring the ASM initiative include generating additional funding support to enable the national expansion of the initiative, and to ensure the sustainability of ASM into the future.
Sally Engle Merry, a senior scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), is a professor of anthropology and the director of the Law and Society Program at New York University. Previously, at Wellesley College, she was Marion Butler McLean Professor in the History of Ideas and professor of anthropology. Her primary areas of research include the rule of law in various contexts of community life and the adaptation of international standards of human rights to life in local communities.