WGSS 384CCrit Methods Gender/Sexuality

Catalog

This course examines how knowledge about gender and sexuality is produced, authorized, and contested across the social sciences and humanities. Students engage foundational qualitative and quantitative research methods while critically analyzing their epistemological assumptions, political implications, and ethical consequences. Topics include feminist and queer epistemologies, standpoint theory, intersectional research design, survey and interview methods, statistical and textual analysis, archival and oral history approaches, and critical race and decolonial critiques of data. The course also explores methods as potential sites of resistance and transformation, including Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) and community-based approaches. Drawing on the framework of impact validity, students consider how research can be strategically designed to advance social and policy change. Through applied assignments, students develop methodologically rigorous, theoretically grounded, and socially accountable research designs.