Abstract
The establishment and institutionalization of women’s studies program in the higher education was once viewed as “the academic wing of the women’s liberation movement.” It has led to the curriculum reform in higher education which became a major women’s movement itself. The patterns and paths by which women studies developed as an academic discipline had been various and diverse. In general, two major models of institutionalization may be identified as practiced in the West, especially in the US. They were referred to as the integrated and separated models. This chapter aims to analyze the developmental procedure of women’s and gender studies in higher education as a manifestation of women’s movement in Taiwan. Using the information collected from educational statistics and roasters of courses listed in Women’s Studies publications, this chapter attempts to delineate the development of women’s movement as reflected in the process of feminist transformation of knowledge in higher education in Taiwan. Three dimensions of the feminist transformation process, namely, institutionalization of women’s studies, mainstreaming of gender curriculum, and feminist transformation of knowledge production were examined. Analysis of the data shows that women’s movement has achieved a fair level of success in gendering the liberal arts education of university and mainstreaming feminist pedagogy. Women and gender courses became available in more than half of the institutions of Taiwan’s higher education in the past three decades. Gendering of curriculum was achieved not only among traditional departments and disciplines, there was also significant progress in general education curricula. This reflects the vitality and versatility of feminist scholars and women’s movement in Taiwan. However, in terms of the acceptance and prevalence of gender studies as an independent academic institute or discipline, especially in the prestigious public research university, there remains much to be desired by feminist ideals.
An earlier version of this chapter was presented in the Annual Conference of American Association of Asian Studies, Honolulu, March 31–April 3, 2011.
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Chou, BE. (2018). Gendering of Academic in Taiwan: From Women’s Studies to Gender Studies, 1985–2015. In: Chen, Yc. (eds) (En)Gendering Taiwan. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63219-3_8
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