OSI's Network Women's Program organized a Gender Studies Winter School for 43 scholars, women s program coordinators, and other partners from 8 countries of the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan), from January 31 February 8, 2005. Guests from Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States also took part as organizers, lecturers, or observers.
The school was part of NWP s three-year program Gender Studies Development in the Newly Independent States (NIS), organized in collaboration with the Institute for Social and Gender Policy (NWP s partner organization in Russia). The core goals of this program are to develop a regionally connected, professional approach to research and teaching in the field of gender studies, and to establish and enhance a sub-regional community of highly qualified gender experts: researchers, scholars, and teachers. The program aims to transform higher education through the integration of gender studies.
The Winter School was designed to increase gender studies researchers' capacity and to develop a stronger regional gender studies community. The group of highly qualified researchers from post-Soviet countries presented their research projects, which aim to create awareness of key gender issues in the region. In general, the research topics deal with gender aspects of economics, politics, equity in education, religion, ethnicity, family, reproductive rights, and domestic violence.
The agenda combined basic gender theory, training sessions on sociological research methods, analysis of the most important gender issues for the countries of the region, and group discussions on participants research projects, and ended with a roundtable.
Each participant identified a personal mentor to assist him/her with the project via consultations during the entire research period. After receiving feedback from gender studies experts, the researchers are now working on conducting field research. Later, they will present the papers based on their research. These papers will also be included in a scholar ly journal, which will be a valuable educational resource for comparative regional gender studies providing necessary data for university courses.
Lecturers included the following gender studies experts in the field and/or region: Ayse Gul Altinay, Sabanci University, Turkey; Sofya Babayan, Gender Studies Center, Armenia; Olga Voronina, Moscow Gender Studies Center, Russia; Irina Zherebkina, Kharkov Gender Studies Center; Svetlana Shakirova, Gender Studies Center, Kazakhstan; Elena Mescherkina, Academy of Science, Russia; Bermet Tugelbaeva, Kyrgyz-Russia Slavonic Studies University; Lyudmila Rzhanitzina, Academy of Science, Russia; and Irina Tartakovskaya, Academy of Science, Russia.
Other speakers included Dr. Elena Kochkina, Institute of Social and Gender Policy, Russia; Hakan Altinay, Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation (OSIAF), Turkey; Anastasia Posadskaya, OSI Network Women s Program; Gokce Touluoglu, OSIAF Turkey; Eleonora Fayzullaeva, Institute for Social and Gender Policy; Marina Pugacheva, Institute for Social and Gender Policy; Debra Schultz, OSI NWP.