Gender and Diversity Studies

The Gender and Diversity Sudies (GDST) Minor acquaints students with scholarship on gender and diversity in their broadest, most inclusive sense. Courses in the minor facilitate the development of students' critical thinking skills, knowledge base, and intellectual frameworks for analyzing and exploring the nature of diversity including socioeconomic, political, psychological, and cultural experiences and positions between and among individuals and groups defined by gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, age, religious beliefs, and physical/mental abilities. Students in the minor examine the individual and collective experiences of traditionally disenfranchised as well as privileged social groups, investigating the conceptual roots of identity as well as similarities and differences among them.

The gender and diversity studies minor is in concert with the educational mission of Xavier University: to educate students about issues of peace and justice and to develop awareness of the variety of human cultural experiences. Graduates with concentrations in gender and diversity studies regularly enter graduate and professional schools. Others work in business, government, health, social services, schools and museums.