Instructor: Dana Barron

Subject Area/Discipline: Women's Studies
School: University of Pennsylvania
Project Area: Housing
 
Spring 2003

Women’s Studies 259
Gender, Policy, and Community Service

Course Description
This seminar integrates community service with academic analysis and research on gender and public policy. Each student will intern with a Philadelphia-area organization that works on gender issues.  Semester-long internships will be integrated with readings and assignments on topics related to gender and policy. Each student will also complete a research paper using data collected from the internship combined with academic research.

Course Assignments and Requirements

• Internship: 8 or more hours per week with assigned organization
• Attendance and active participation in class
• Weekly reading responses by email (due each Weds at 10:00)
• Research paper (10-15 pp.)
• Oral presentation to the class on research project

Readings
The following books are available for purchase at House of Our Own Bookstore, 3920 Spruce Street. They are also on reserve in the Rosengarten Reserve Room at Van Pelt.

Alice Sebold, Lucky (Scribner, 1999)

Rickie Solinger, Beggars and Choosers: How The Politics of Choice Shapes Adoption, Abortion, and Welfare in The United States (Hill and Wang, 2001)

Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (Metropolitan Books, 2001)

Additional readings will be posted on the course’s Blackboard site which you can access at http://courseweb.library.upenn.edu (click “login” and enter your PennNet ID and your Penn Key, then select WSTD 259). You will need to be able to open .pdf files with Adobe Acrobat to download the readings. 
 
Class Schedule and Reading Assignments
1.    January 15:  Introduction and Internship Assignments

2.    January 22:  Contexts of Inequality
Readings:  Sugrue, Shaw & Lee, and “A Change of Pace” (Blackboard)

3.    January 29: The Public and Non-Profit Welfare State
Readings:   Salamon (Blackboard)

4.    February 5: Brief History of Women and Welfare
Readings:  Katz and Gordon (Blackboard)

5.    February 12: Women and Low-Wage Work
Readings:  Ehrenreich (Book – all)

6.    February 19: Work and Parenthood
Readings: Crittendon, Oliker, and Heymann (Blackboard)

7.    February 26: Care Work
Readings:  Folbre (Blackboard)

Friday Feb. 28 -- Work-Family session of ESS – details TBA

8.    March 5:  RESCHEDULE --  Women and Housing
Reading: TBA (Blackboard)

Spring Break

9.    March 19:  Gender Violence
Reading:  Sebold (Book – all)

10.    March 26:  Motherhood and Choice:
Readings:  Solinger (Book, selections TBA)

11.    April 2 -– class presentations

12.    April 9 --  class presentations

April 16: Passover – no class

13.    April 23 – class presentations

Internship Organizations

Clara Bell Duvall Education Fund
125 S. 9th Street, suite 304
Contact: Carol Petraitas, Executive Director
ph:  215-629-0111
http://www.aclupa.org/duvall/
duvall@aclupa.org

Created in 1979, the Fund is dedicated to education and advocacy about the need for safe, legal, and accessible reproductive health programs. Interns will work closely with the Executive Director on one of their ongoing research and advocacy projects.

Community Women’s Education Project (CWEP)
2801 Frankford Avenue
contact: Kristine Morrow, Family Literacy Coordinator
ph:  215-426-2200
http://www.cwep.org

CWEP helps women to improve their lives through education. It provides adult education, support services, and help obtaining work experience and jobs.  Interns will work closely with women pursuing adult education and family literacy courses. They will participate in an ongoing evaluation of CWEP’s programs through interviews with students, participation and observation in the classroom, and close work with CWEP staff.

Office of Emergency Shelter and Services (OESS) Woodstock Shelter
1981 N. Woodstock Street
Contact:  Sarah Reiter
ph:  215-686-6770
Sarah.Reiter@phila.gov

The Woodstock Shelter houses women and children, especially women who are recovering from substance abuse. OESS has set up a computer lab in the shelter, which is run by Sarah Reiter, an Americorps VISTA volunteer with OESS. Interns will work with shelter residents to use the resources in the lab to improve their skills for job readiness and GED training. Interns will also run workshops with residents to discuss issues, provide information, and give support to residents.

PA Low Income Housing Coalition (PALIHC)
2 South Easton Road
Glenside, PA 19038
Contact: Liz Hersh, Executive Director
ph:  215-576-7044
lizhersh@palihc.org
http://www.palihc.org

PALIHC works to assure safe, decent, affordable and accessible housing for all Pennsylvanians, especially those with low incomes. Interns will work with PALIHC’s newly formed Women’s Caucus, a consortium of women around the state who work in housing and community development. The Caucus’s mission is to promote women as leaders in the field of housing and community development and to make housing services more responsive to the needs of women and children. The Caucus is planning an introductory meeting in March in Harrisburg to set its agenda for the future.

Penn LGBT Center
3907 Spruce Street
Contact: Erin Cross
Phone: 215-898-5044
ecross@pobox.upenn.edu
http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/lgbtc


The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center at PENN, one of the oldest and most active programs of its kind in the country, supports PENN lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students, staff, alumni, and faculty and increases the general PENN community’s understanding and acceptance of its sexual and gender minority members. Established in 1982, the Center provides a variety of services throughout the year for and concerning PENN's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Interns will work on some of the Center’s many programs, events, and activities on campus.

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania (PPSP)
1144 Locust Street
Contact: Jennifer Schwerin, Community Outreach Coordinator
ph: 215-351-5500
http://www.ppsp.org

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA believes that every child should be a wanted child. Its mission is to protect and enhance reproductive freedom, to increase access to reproductive health care services and information, and to promote sexual health. This mission drives the comprehensive programs and services that PPSP provides, reaching over 43,000 women, men, and teens throughout the Philadelphia area.

Student interns will work with the Public Affairs Department on its ongoing projects, including achieving equity in contraceptive coverage; keeping uninsured women healthy; international family planning; conducting outreach to colleges and universities; providing resources to student groups, and working to motivate youth; voter registration drives among patients; and building coalitions and community partnerships.

Special criteria:
PPSP asks that the interns who work with them understand and have a strong personal commitment to reproductive rights and the goals and philosophies of Planned Parenthood.

Tenants’ Action Group (TAG) - tentative
21 South 12th Street, 12th Floor, Philadelphia
Contact: Tony Henry, Executive Director
Telephone Number: (215) 575-0700
http://www.tagphila.org/

The Tenants' Action Group (TAG) advances and defends the rights and interests of tenants and homeless people throughout Philadelphia. TAG strives to guarantee that all Philadelphians have access to safe, decent, accessible, and affordable housing. TAG accomplishes this goal by developing and implementing a common agenda that involves TAG’s leadership, staff, membership, and community allies. The details of this internship are still under discussion.

Third Path Institute
4918 Cedar Avenue
Contact: Jessica DeGroot, President
ph: 215-747-8790
http://www.thirdpath.org

The ThirdPath Institute is a non-profit, national project that works to assist families and individuals in making more time for life. We encourage and assist both individuals and families in redesigning work to create more time for life.  We promote viable policy and thinking about making work-life balance possible for all people, in all places, at all points in their lives.  Student interns will participate in research and interviews of couples who practice shared care.  Interns help review relevant books. These reviews are then used to educate our staff as well as educate different constituencies connected to our organization.  We also actively interview couples who have designed new ways to integrate work and family, where they both redesign work to create time to care for their children, and where they both share in the work of earning income and caring for children.  Interns are trained in conducting and then in writing up the interviews as stories to be used in our educational materials.  Interns also help review and monitor the media and how it addresses the topic of work and family.  Given time and interest there are additional outreach projects they may be involved with, as well.