Collaborating for Change (PDF)

In the midst of unprecedented attention to gender based violence (GBV), prompted in part by the #MeToo movement, Collaborating for Change: Transforming Cultures to End Gender-Based Violence in Higher Education provides a groundbreaking analysis of higher education culture and how it can be transformed to eradicate GBV.

This book builds on existing scholarship and practice, offering unique reflections from faculty, staff, and students about potential avenues for change that go beyond programs and policies. It recognizes the important work achieved to date on this topic but argues that transformation of cultures, rather than reform of practices, is now required. Starting from the premise that cultural change must be embedded in groups of people working together, the contributors to the book offer insights into what makes for constructive, effective collaborations between activists in universities and the wider community, as well as with university leaders, managers, and policy-makers.

The volume is an interdisciplinary, international account/analysis of attempts to transform higher education cultures in an attempt to eradicate GBV. The chapters, contributed by leading scholars and practitioners in the field, span the experiences of GBV in Canada, the United States, Scotland, England, France, and India. Collaborating for Change reveals the different institutional, political, and cultural contexts in which activists, scholars, and practitioners endeavor to eradicate GBV and provides insights for others engaged in this work around the globe. The book argues that nothing short of a transformation is required to make higher education safe for all.