Professor Robinson is interested in social change and social movements, especially those movements that are directed at achieving greater levels of equality among people. Currently she is involved in an extensive research project that examines debates among Americans over equality politics in education policy, analyzing at both the federal and several state levels attempts to establish equality in education through programs such as Title IX and equalization of funding policies. This research is funded by The Spencer Foundation and she is working with a legal scholar (Professor Julia Lamber) and a sociologist (Professor Pamela Barnhouse Walters) on the 4-year project.
Originally, Professor Robinson was trained as a comparativist at Cornell University and did research on China. From that area focus, she extended to other communist countries (especially Poland), and then to Western Europe (primarily France.) Her second area is contemporary political thought, especially feminism. In addition to her research on education equality, she is continuing work on the formation of social policies by examining the negotiations among individual citizens (particularly women), organized social movements (particularly women's movements) and representatives of political power and the state. She has published a wide variety of studies, including her forthcoming book LIVING GENDER AFTER COMMUNISM (2006) and a study on abortion policy in France (2001). She works extensively with graduate students and has published several pieces with them.
Professor Robinson is a founding member of the international research group RNGS (Research Network on Gender, Politics and the State.) Previous work with RNGS include contributions to the volumes on Comparative State Feminism (1995) and to Abortion Politics, Women's Movements, and the Democratic State (2001). Professor Robinson was editor of Women and Social Policy: From Local to Global (NWSA Journal, 2001) and has also published in numerous other edited volumes, as well as journals such as The China Quarterly, Policy Studies Review, Polity, Asian Survey, and Comparative Education Review. Professor Robinson teaches courses on morality, religion and public policy; feminist political thought; gender and the state; cross-cultural studies of gender, sexuality and the family; and Nation and Gender.
Professor Robinson has served as Director of Women's Studies and as Dean for Women's Affairs at IU. She has received two NSF grants as well as funding from other major federal agencies. She has been involved in the development of the Advanced Placement Exams in Government and Politics, having served as chair of that program from 1996-99 and now as chief of the grading process for the AP Examination in Comparative Politics. Professor Robinson is recipient of the Indiana University President's Award for Distinguished Teaching (1996) and of six other teaching awards. She is currently Director of Undergraduate Studies in the department as well as Director of the Leadership Ethics and Social Action program (LESA) housed in the department.
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