Girls, Media, and You! Project is awarded prestigious AAUW Community Action Grant
Posted April 27, 2011
Lesley Professor Dr. Amy Rutstein-Riley (Ph.D., ‘05) and Associate Dean for Career and Community Service Alice Diamond recently received notification that their project, Girls, Media, and You! was awarded the prestigious American Association of University Women’s Community Action Grant. The grant provides one to two years of funding for projects that promote education and equity for women and girls. Girls, Media, and You! will receive two years of funding.
Dr. Amy Rutstein-Riley
“Receiving the AAUW Community Action Grant enables the Girlhood Project to continue to flourish in unique and exciting ways. This award supports our collaborative, relational, and feminist approach to examining the social and cultural constructions of girlhood. We are very pleased to receive this award,” said Dr. Rutstein-Riley.
Girls, Media, and You! is a joint project between Lesley University and Tutoring Plus of Cambridge, Inc. The project brings under-served and at-risk middle school girls together with Lesley undergraduates to focus on the influences of society, culture, and media on girlhood in the contemporary U.S. Lesley students participate in a semester-long sociology course, Girlhood, Identity, and Girl Culture, exploring the theory and research relevant to the study of girl’s lives, and focusing on the social and cultural construction of girlhood in the U.S. How developing girls’ identities are influenced by and represented in popular culture and media is a theme which runs throughout the course.
The community service component brings the Lesley students together with middle school girls recruited from Tutoring Plus’ programs. For seven weeks the middle school girls come to Lesley to participate in girls’ groups developed and facilitated by the Lesley University students. These groups provide a space for creating mutually empowering relationships through examination of critical social issues facing girls. Weekly discussion and activity-based sessions explore the deconstruction of media, development of critical media literacy skills, exploration of issues most relevant to the young girls’ lives, including topics of social and relational health and well-being. This collaboration also introduces the younger girls to college life in hopes of fostering college aspirations.
“I am delighted that this award from the American Association of University Women will provide essential support which will allow our Girls’ Groups to continue to grow and develop,” said Diamond. “This service-learning project has been a wonderful collaboration with our community partner Tutoring Plus of Cambridge, and it has allowed Lesley students and middle school girls in Cambridge to learn and work together.”
Tutoring Plus is a Cambridge-based organization which forges relationships between local volunteers and students to inspire and assist the academic, personal, and social growth of youth. Founded in 1964, it now serves over 150 students in grades 4 through 12 each year, providing academic tutoring in addition to mentoring and community support.
The American Association of University Women (AAUW) is a nationwide network of individual members, associations and university partners which works to advance equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, philanthropy, and research. The AAUW is one of the leading sources of funding for graduate women, providing more than $3 million last year through grants and fellowships for research focused on improving schools and communities.