CAREER: The Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative

Women have played essential roles in social movements throughout history, though they have often been written out of history books. In recent years, women have been at the helm of many people-led movements for social change across the globe, including movements to oust dictators, challenge violence against women, and promote human rights. Despite the popular understanding of the importance of women’s leadership in these recent movements, there is a lack of micro-level data on how and why individual women engage in such movements, and to what extent their participation matters for movement success.

This CAREER project encompasses a groundbreaking research and educational program on women’s engagement in social movements.

This project has two core components: (1) cutting edge research aimed at better understanding how strategies that prioritize the inclusion of women, ethnic and racial minorities, and other marginalized groups are associated with the success of social movements; and (2) education and training programs that seek to disseminate evidence-based research to graduate students, broader academic and policy communities, and movement activists across the globe. The unique strength of the Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative lies in the synergy between its different stakeholders—including activists, students, researchers, policymakers, and the general public.

The research component focuses on gathering micro-level data from women-identified activists in 10 recent movements across the globe to produce a book, dataset, and training manual. Their stories will help us understand why women join social movements, how they participate (including the tactics, strategies, and gendered repertoires of contention they deploy), and whether their participation matters for the movement’s success or failure.

Then, an innovative curricular program in Social Justice at the University of Denver will enable the dissemination of this information to both traditional students and movement activists, as well as create a structure for frontline activists to directly contribute to research findings.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.