Lambert gets NSF grant to study gender provisions in national constitutions

Western Michigan University's Dr. Priscilla Lambert, assistant professor of political science and faculty of the Soga Japan Center, is co-principal investigator of a collaborative research project awarded $312,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation to examine how gender provisions in national constitutions contribute to women’s political and economic standing.

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Lambert is leading WMU's part of the research project, which will combine a cross-national analysis of 100 countries with more detailed country case studies on provisions, laws and enforcement for the project titled "Gender and Constitutions: A Comparative Analysis of the Effect of Gender Provisions." Dr. Druscilla Scribner, assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, is directing efforts there.

In addition, they will perform more in-depth analysis on 15 countries in five world regions and a close qualitative analysis of six key countries in southern Africa and South America.

The National Science Collaborative Grant, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will provide $312,000 over three years to pay for research assistants, materials and software, research travel (including field work in southern Africa and Latin America), and some compensation for summer research.

"Our main goals are to produce a book on gender provisions in national constitutions and their effect on legislation and court decisions and ultimately on gender equality outcomes,"Lambert said. "We also plan to make our constitutional coding and data on gender provisions public on the Web."

The National Science Foundation receives approximately 40,000 proposals each year for research, education and training projects, of which approximately 11,000 are funded. In addition, the Foundation receives several thousand applications for graduate and postdoctoral fellowships.

"The fact that Dr. Lambert and her colleague were awarded such a major award on their first application speaks very highly of Dr. Lambert's work and of the quality and level of work conducted here at WMU," Covell said. "We at the Soga Japan Center are very excited that one of our core faculty has received such an honor."

Lambert earned her Ph.D. in 2004 and a master's degree prior to that in political science from the University of California-San Diego. She also holds a master's economics from Keio University in Japan. At WMU she teaches on many topics, including Japanese politics, comparative politics, international relations, capitalism and democracy, comparative political economy and women and politics.

The National Science Foundation was created by Congress in 1950 to promote research in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering disciplines at American universities. Since the agency's establishment, its funded researchers have won more than 170 Nobel Prizes and have contributed to the world such important discoveries as Carbon-14 date testing for ancient artifacts, the genetic decoding of viruses and the creation of an entirely new state of matter.

To learn more about NSF, visit the foundation’s Web site: www.nsf.gov/