3^rd International educational initiative

sponsored by from the Women's Network Program of Open Society Institute

and Joint European Project TEMPUS/Tacis

Social work and gender issues are closely interrelated. Social workers, dealing with social problems, often face patriarchal social relations, situations of exclusion because of sex, age and social class. Anti-discriminatory approach in social work is important for social justice and social development and is based on the ability of social workers to recognize gender inequality on the individual level or/and structural level. A course "Gender studies and women�s studies" was introduced into the Russian state standard of higher professional education for social work students. Furthermore, by the initiative of university professors gender perspective has been introduced into a variety of courses for social workers, including such as sociology, family studies, social psychology, social anthropology, social policy, theory of social work.

An objective of this summer school is to enhance gender equality principles and gender-sensitive practice in social work, to develop professional training of social workers. Following issues will be discussed during the school: approaches and methods of feminist research of social policy, theory and methods of gender-sensitive social work and gender studies matters related to teaching and practicing social work.

Scholars of the Moscow Center of Gender Studies, Ivanovo State University, Pomor State University, Saratov State Technical University, University of Birmingham (UK) and University of G�teborg (Sweden) will be the lecturers of the school. The working languages of the school are Russian and English.

Eligibility: preference will be given to the citizens of Russian Federation, under 40 years, who are teaching gender courses for social work students, and who are interested in gender studies. The representatives of the governmental or non-governmental services with an experience in gender-sensitive social work are also welcome. Total number of participants will be 30. A limited number of participants from other countries coming on their own expense will be allowed.

Those Russian participants, whose applications will be successful, will be invited to take part in the school, their travel expenses (train tickets), costs for accommodation in an resort Volzhskie Dali at a picturesque embankment of the Volga river, teaching materials and a set of books on gender and social policy will be covered. In turn, the participants will be required to attend all classes of the school and to prepare final presentation on gender-sensitive issues in social work education or practice. A fee to enter the school is $10.

To take part in the competition applicants should submit the following: filled in application form, a copy of a publication or an essay of about 4000 words, recommendation from a professional sociologist.