Research - Dr. Cheryl Gosselin
Dr. Cheryl Gosselin
Department of Sociology
Dr. Gosselin's PhD dissertation, entitled VERS L'AVENIR: Québec Women's Politics Between 1945 and 1967: Feminist, Maternalist and Nationalist Links, focused on the political and social activism of Quebec women. It explored the links between the women's movement and nationalism in Quebec. The research revealed how women's groups used the nationalist causes of Quebec's Quiet Revolution to advance their own gendered interests, such as demanding social and political equality, welfare rights for mothers, and more working opportunities for married women. Far from being incompatible, feminism and nationalism combined to allow women to take part in the social mobilization processes at work during the 1950s and 1960s in Quebec.
Dr. Gosselin's other areas of research involve the lives of English-speaking women in the Eastern Townships. Using oral testimonies, she is studying the lives of women from the past as well as the present and their work to effect social change to improve women's status. She has studied the experiences of some of the first female students to graduate from Bishop's, the working conditions of schoolteachers in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, volunteerism among churchwomen, and the social engagements of local branches of the Women's Institutes and the Cercles de Fermières. Her most recent project explores how globalization and economic restructuring are affecting the socioeconomic status and well-being of Eastern Townships women.
