Submitted by Isha RAY on
Empowerment measures are a popular and valuable tool for evaluating women and girls programming. Measuring an individual’s empowerment, however, is elusive because it lacks a biological or phenological manifestation. As a result, developing empirical empowerment measures face a multitude of challenges including bias, missing information, and lack of definitional clarity. Often empowerment constructs such as agency, self-efficacy, and self-esteem are proxy indicators for empowerment. Regardless of the challenges measuring empowerment, researchers and policy makers have plowed ahead with developing, implementing, and publishing measures. The global development sector, especially, has been keen with “empowering” women and girls to achieve global equity. As women’s and girls’ empowerment and gender equity programs surge in popularity, this timely review answers to shed light the landscape of empowerment measure
This review explores these issues and aims to explore the following questions
What are the theoretical frameworks and definitions of empowerment? What are the characteristics of the collected data? (i.e. cross-sectional, trial, ethnographic)
What are the types of studies that dominate the empowerment programs?
What “fields” incorporate empowerment programming? I.e. economics, agriculture, finance, health, etc. Differences in funding between these fields?
Over the summer, we conducted a search of peer-reviewed publications, and reviewed the titles and abstracts of over 30,000 papers. Over the next few months, we're focused on extracting data from a subset of these papers. Students will work in the text extraction, coding, data analysis, interpretation, manuscript drafting, submission and revision process. In addition, this rich dataset is a valuable resource for honors thesis, and there are many ways to meet your specific research interests. This is a dynamic group research environment with thoughtful mentorship.
Day-to-day supervisior will be Gauthami Penakalapati, PhD candidate. If you have any questions, please contact her at gauthamip@berkeley.edu.
Over the summer, we conducted a search of peer-reviewed publications, and reviewed the titles and abstracts of over 30,000 papers. Over the next few months, we're focused on extracting data from a subset of these papers. Students will work in the text extraction, coding, data analysis, interpretation, manuscript drafting, submission and revision process. In addition, this rich dataset is a valuable resource for honors thesis, and there are many ways to meet your specific research interests. This is a dynamic group research environment with thoughtful mentorship.
Learning outcome: experiences of hand-in-hand conceptualize, conduct, and publish systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Depending on the student's interest, there are opportunities for authorship.
A background in global public policy, economics, global development, South Asia, public health, ethnic studies, gender studies, or other related fields would be preferable. Effective written and verbal communication are essential. Meta-analyses or scoping/systematic review experience not required. This project is an excellent opportunity for a thesis or master's paper, co-authorship(s), and a dynamic mixed-methods research experience. Likely opportunities to continue into Summer 2023.