This course offers an introduction to the history of gender, sex, and sexuality in the modern United States, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. It begins with an overview of historical approaches to the field, emphasizing the changing nature of sexual and gender identities over time. The remainder of the course flows chronologically, tracing the expanding and contracting nature of attempts to control, construct, and contain sexual and gender identities, as well as the efforts of those who worked to resist, reject, and reform institutionalized heterosexuality and mainstream configurations of gendered power.
Community colleges have long provided an affordable pathway for both traditional and nontraditional students to pursue high-quality post-secondary education, which intersects with MIT’s dedication to providing high-quality OER for free to the world. By collaborating to train and support faculty as they adopt and adapt MIT-created open materials, we are learning what it means to modify educational resources for localized audiences.
With the launching of MIT OpenCourseWare, MIT became the first higher education institution to make its course materials freely available online to anyone, anywhere in the world. As a catalyst and model in the global open education movement, MIT OpenCourseWare provides materials from more than 2,500 courses that span the MIT undergraduate and graduate curriculum, and has reached over 500 million learners and educators around the world. While we publish new course material from MIT faculty on our website and to over 5 million subscribers on our our commitment to access and lifelong learning is incomplete without learning from members of the open education community who leverage open resources and practices to promote more equitable educational experiences for learners.
Maricopa Community Colleges is one of the country’s largest community college districts and the first higher education institution in the United States to enable students to search its course catalog specifically for no-cost or low-cost courses. Since launching the Maricopa Millions project in 2013, the Open Maricopa initiative has saved students over $40 million on textbook costs. Leading the implementation and growth of open educational practices and academic innovation initiatives across the district, Lisa Young serves as faculty administrator for open education and innovation at Maricopa Community Colleges and also as Vice-chair of the Board of Directors for Open Education Global.