Certificate in Girls' Studies
The undergraduate Certificate in Girls' Studies enables students to utilize gender and age to examine girls' lives and girlhood from historical, psychological, anthropological, political, religious and rhetorical perspectives.
The Certificate in Girls' Studies is designed to complement any major, minor or concentration in the humanities, social sciences and biological sciences. The certificate will increase educational opportunities of students pursuing graduate work and/or professional careers in education, law, social service, medicine, mental health, child advocacy organizations and businesses that address the needs of girls in the United States and abroad. The purpose of the Girls' Studies curriculum is to:
- Examine age and generation as forces within past and present cultures and societies.
- Cultivate new insights into topics and methods of inquiry that view girls as a unique category distinct from women and children.
- Encourage critical thinking through cross-cultural comparisons of girls across lines of race, class, ethnicity, religion, sexualities and societies.
- Examine the continuities and changes between girls' social realities and girlhood as a cultural construction of gendered ideals.
- Examine how girls accommodate, negotiate and/or resist prevailing ideals of girlhood.
- Question changing definitions of girlhood and the shifting boundaries between girlhood and womanhood over time and place.
- Discover ways to empower girls and to diminish the threats they face in their everyday lives.
Requirements for the Certificate in Girls' Studies
The Certificate in Girls' Studies may be earned in conjunction with B.A. or B.S. degrees or as a free-standing credential available to non-matriculated students. Students are required to complete nine credit hours in three different disciplines chosen from the courses listed below.
Required Course:
- HIST 300D Girlhood in America (3)
Electives:
- ANTH 300 Anthropology of Childhood (special topics) (3)
- CJC 390 New Dimensions for Criminal Justice Topic: Applied Correctional Interventions for Delinquent Girls (3)
- EDUC 497 Individual Study (3)
- ENGL 441 Girls and Print Culture (3)
- HIST 300A Girls in the Past and Present: Continuities and Changes (3)
- PSYCH 490 Directed Individual Research (3)
With approval from the director of Women's and Gender Studies, students pursuing the certificate may also enroll in directed readings courses in order to examine specific subject areas (e.g. eating disorders) not covered in other courses.
