2019 Annual Conference

Women’s Issues, Status, and Education

Shared Concurrent Session (Approx. 12 or 20 minutes)

In Wikipedia only 18% of biographical entries are about women. Join us to correct this gender imbalance. Discuss continuing the work of Peterson (2002), Imel, Bersch, et al. (2015) by writing biographies of women educators as Wikipedia entries and encouraging our graduate students to contribute, perhaps as a class project.

Women (CIS- and trans-gender) connected with adult learning or education, faculty members in fields related to adult education, and female graduate students in fields related to adult education. Male allies are welcome.

• Will become aware how underrepresented female adult educators (and females in general) are in Wikipedia
• Will learn which female adult educators are included in Wikipedia and some who have not yet been included
• Will know five ways that academics can contribute to Wikipedia.
• Will have ideas for recruiting other researchers and graduate students to contribute.
• Will receive copies of / access to WikiProject’s Women in Red Primer and Ten Simple Rules for creating women’s biographies.

Although many adult educators are women, the voices in our texts are often those of men. Only a specialized audience is likely to come across Elizabeth A. Peterson’s (2002) Freedom Road: Adult Education of African Americans which included biographies of four African American women in her book, Susan Imel and Gretchen T. Bersch’s (2015) No Small Lives: Handbook of North American Early Women Adult Educators, 1925-1950 which recruited women to write 26 biographies and 17 short biographies of female adult educators, or the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame. We argue that there should be more representation in accessible sites such as Wikipedia. 

There is a gender imbalance in Wikipedia. Only 18% of biographical entries are about women. Recently two women were found to be lacking entries: the third woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics and a journalist with two Pulitzer prizes.

Wikipedia editors are also predominately male. Efforts are being made to improve the gender imbalance of entries and editors. This session will present an invitation – even a challenge – to join this effort. At this session we will recruit participants who will contribute, organize to avoid duplication, and encourage female graduate students to participate.

The session will start with a brief introduction from the presenters regarding the low percentage of women with biographical Wikipedia entries and what efforts are being made to improve that imbalance.

Participants will then brainstorm a list of female adult educators that are already included in Wikipedia as well as some that are not.

Participants will be invited to discuss suggestions of how we might address these omissions.

Recruit adult educators who are willing to write Wikipedia entries and to encourage their female graduate students to contribute, perhaps as part of a class project.