The assignment should be 3-4 double-spaced pages in length, not including your title page and references page. This is a RESEARCH paper so I have to stress the importance of selecting high quality, peer-reviewed sources. You must use a MINIMUM of 3 peer-reviewed journal articles in your paper. If you have any questions about whether a source is peer-reviewed or how to find such articles, you can email me or ask me in class. You can use other sources, like newspapers and online sources, but they must be in addition to the 3 peer-reviewed journal articles, and they must not be the central focus of your paper. Your paper should be largely based on the peer-reviewed articles.

In writing your paper, it might be helpful to keep in mind the five W’s: Who, What, Where, When, and Why? That sounds simplistic and I certainly don’t want you to structure your paper with those as headings, but I feel that they offer a rough guideline to help you set up your paper. You need to research the issue itself so that you know a bit about the historical origins of it, how long it has been happening, who is most deeply affected by it and the impact of this issue on their lives. Although these are global issues, you can certainly highlight ‘trouble zones’ where the issue is of heightened importance or has received more attention in the media. Answering the question of WHY the issue is occurring will not be easy. In fact, it’s unlikely that any of these issues will be boiled down to one clear cause. It’s up to you to decide which explanations to focus on, as you certainly won’t have the pages to discuss all of them. I’m happy to talk these through with you in advance of the due date.

topic:
2. Global governance gender gap: Although women represent more than 50% of the world’s population, they only constitute a small fraction (approximately 20%) of global political and economic leaders. Explore some of the reasons why this is the case, the impact that it has on the development of policies, laws, and rights for women. Discuss the potential (and controversial) use of quotas to increase the proportion of leadership roles held by women. Prime Minister Trudeau recently made headlines when he established gender parity in his federal cabinet. This might make an interesting point of discussion. How might equal gender representation in governance change the world?