Doctoral Dissertation Research: Broadening Participation of Underrepresented Groups in Civil Social Institutions

有充分的科学证据表明，民间社会机构在充分包容其所代表的广大民众时最为有效和持久。本项目通过研究各国政府为增加参与而进行的具体试验，探讨哪些因素有助于和阻碍代表性不足的群体参与民间社会。该项目在培训一名人类学研究生掌握经验科学数据收集和分析方法的同时，还将向致力于探索更有效的方法向公众传播科学的组织广泛传播其研究结果。将传播这项研究的结果，以协助研究人员和决策者改进旨在增加代表性不足的群体参与民间社会的政策和方案拟订工作。该项目还有助于扩大传统上在科学领域代表性不足的个人的参与。米里亚姆·基利莫在埃默里大学彼得·利特尔博士的监督下将探讨政府设计妇女参与民间社会的方案对社会关系的影响。为解决妇女参政人数少的问题，许多国家在政治代表性方面采用了性别配额。性别配额包括要求政党在选举期间提名女性候选人或直接提名她们担任政治职务等方法。虽然已经进行了大量研究，以调查哪些性别配额最能增加妇女担任政治职务的人数，但我们仍然不完全了解这些妇女对性别配额制度的感受。这项研究将在肯尼亚进行，该国2010年的宪法引入了性别配额，以增加妇女的政治代表性。肯尼亚的性别配额规定，妇女应在47个县议会中至少占据三分之一的席位。自2010年以来，在两个选举周期中实施了性别配额。当很少有妇女通过选举赢得席位时，各政党提名数百名妇女进入县议会，以达到性别配额。然而，这些妇女被批评为男性占主导地位的政党的盟友。通过观察法、访谈、文件和媒体分析，研究者将调查肯尼亚穆兰加县和夸莱县议会女议员的经历。这两个国家有不同的民族、宗教和政治历史。这项研究将探讨县议会的女议员如何参与县议会和社区，以及她们与县议会男议员的关系。这项研究还将审查在公众中流传的关于县议会女议员的想法。研究结果将有助于深入了解性别配额如何塑造政治制度以及担任政治职务的妇女的经历。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

It has been scientifically well-documented that civil social institutions are most effective and durable when they are fully inclusive of the broader populations that they represent. This project explores what factors contribute to and inhibit the participation of underrepresented groups in civil society by looking at specific experiments that governments have used to increase participation. While training a graduate student in anthropology in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, the project would broadly disseminate its findings to organizations invested in discovering more effective methods for communicating science to the public. The findings of this research will be disseminated in such a way to aid researchers and policy-makers to improve policies and programming aimed at increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in civil society. The project also contributes to broadening the participation of individuals traditionally underrepresented in science.Miriam Kilimo, under the supervision of Dr. Peter Little of Emory University will explore what impact government programs to engineer women's participation in civil society have on social relations. To address the low numbers of women in politics, numerous countries have adopted gender quotas in political representation. The gender quotas include methods such as requiring political parties to field female candidates during elections or to nominate them directly into political office. Although much research has been conducted to investigate which gender quotas work best to increase the number of women in political office, we still do not fully understand how these women experience the gender quota system. This research will be carried out in Kenya, where a 2010 constitution introduced gender quotas to increase women's political representation. Kenya's gender quota directs that women should occupy at least one-third of the seats in the 47 county assemblies. The gender quota has been implemented in two election cycles since 2010. When few women won seats by election, political parties nominated hundreds of women to county assemblies to meet the gender quota. However, these women have been criticized as allies of political parties that are dominated by men. Through observational methods, interviews, and document and media analyses, the researcher will investigate the experiences of female members of county assembly in Murang'a and Kwale counties in Kenya. These two counties have different ethnic groups, religions, and political histories. The study will address how female members of county assemblies participate in the county assembly and in the community, and how they relate to male members of county assemblies. The research will also examine the ideas about female members of county assemblies that are circulated in the public. The findings from the research will provide insight into how gender quotas shape political systems and the experiences of women who occupy political office.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.