Threshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies: Ways of Seeing, Thinking, and Knowing

Threshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies: Ways of Seeing, Thinking, and Knowing is a textbook designed primarily for introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies courses, with the intent of providing both a skill- and concept-based foundation in the field. The third edition includes fully revised and expanded case studies and updated statistics; in addition, the content has been updated throughout to reflect significant news stories and cultural developments. The text is driven by a single key question: "What are the ways of thinking, seeing, and knowing that characterize Women’s and Gender Studies and are valued by its practitioners?" This book illustrates four of the most critical concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies—the social construction of gender, privilege and oppression, intersectionality, and feminist praxis—and grounds these concepts in multiple illustrations. Threshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies develops the key concepts and ways of thinking that students need to develop a deep understanding and to approach material like feminist scholars do, across disciplines.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. The Social Construction of Gender 3. Privilege and Oppression 4. Intersectionality 5. Feminist Praxis Glossary Index

About the Author :
Christie Launius is Associate Professor and Head of the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Department at Kansas State University. She coedited the Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies (2021) and serves as the book review editor for the Journal of Working-Class Studies. Holly Hassel is Professor of English and affiliated faculty with the Women and Gender Studies program at North Dakota State University. Her scholarship has appeared in Feminist Teacher, Teaching and Learning Inquiry, Pedagogy, and Women's Studies. She is coauthor of A Guide to Teaching Introductory Women’s and Gender Studies: Socially Engaged Classrooms (2021).

Review :
Threshold Concepts, third edition, scaffolds the Women and Gender Studies (WGST) discipline strategically, providing a solid foundation to build instruction. Our department has adopted the text across all Introduction to WGST sections, which brings uniformity to our curriculum. Yet it is its comprehensive, concise overlay that pushes it to the top, giving faculty flexibility to use as a standalone text or add in auxiliary material reflective of their areas of expertise. With contemporary analysis of BLM, gender stratifications erupting out of the COVID pandemic, and the politic of identity and place as this unravels across the globe, this accessible text is certain to grab student interest and engage student learning within the WGST field. Barbara LeSavoy, Associate Professor, Department of Women and Gender Studies, SUNY Brockport Threshold Concepts is my go-to intro text. This edition’s revisions regarding the social construction of genders, centrality of the Black Lives Matter movement to activism, and the bright light the COVID epidemic shines on systemic privilege will inspire my students. Jeannie Ludlow, Director of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Eastern Illinois University