Christelle Avril and Mathieu Trachman

The GSST EUR is a graduate level social science training program in gender and sexuality studies run by the EHESS and INED. It is connected to the EHESS gender studies program, with two specificities: emphasis will be on research on sexuality as the crux of gender relations and the area most likely to reveal how they are changing; students will be trained in statistical methods as tools for objectifying gender and sexuality.

In October 2020.

The program is addressed primarily to students with a Licence degree [first French post-undergraduate degree] in social sciences (sociology, history, anthropology) who want to earn a Master’s degree in gender studies and specialize in that discipline. We are also setting up a professional training program for students wishing to learn more about gender inequalities and discrimination, problems that are receiving increasing attention in administrations and companies these days. Foreign applicants will be eligible for international financial aid.

The graduate school is also for researchers at six EHESS laboratories (the CEMS [Centre d’Étude des Mouvements Sociaux], CéSOR [Centre d’Études en Sciences Sociales du Religieux], CESSP [Centre Européen de Sociologie et de Science Politique], CMH [Centre Maurice Halbwachs], CRH [Centre de Recherches Historiques] and IRIS [Institut de Recherches Interdisciplinaires sur les Enjeux Sociaux]) and will provide funding for scientific events organized by the laboratories. Last, the school will hold scientific events for the public at large, facilitated by our site on Campus Condorcet, whose mission is to circulate knowledge to the widest audience possible.

Seminars will cover the main gender studies topic areas: sex-related division of labor, violence, feminisms, scientific knowledge, and others. Some seminars will show how gender operates in other social relations, such as those related to age or social class. For example, what is discrimination, inequality? How should they be measured? One specificity of our training is to ensure that the knowledge produced is grounded in empirical material. This in turn means we will be providing students with solid training in both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Last, students at the school will have access to the EHESS’s prolific course offerings, giving them an opportunity to open their horizons to other topic areas and disciplines.

The EUR will deliver a Master’s degree in a range of gender study specializations; it will also qualify as a degree in sociology, history, or anthropology. The school will help fund doctoral theses in sociology and history with a special gender studies focus. And we will be setting up an “occupational equality job” certification that will open up career perspectives outside of academics.