{"id":26536,"date":"2010-12-15T08:16:35","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T13:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=26536"},"modified":"2011-08-18T16:14:18","modified_gmt":"2011-08-18T20:14:18","slug":"studying-international-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/12\/studying-international-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying Gender and Access to Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"<p>Rachel<\/a>
Rachel Madariaga, CLAS '11, in Turkey, where she conducted interviews with education experts for a research project. Photo provided by the UConn Foundation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rachel Madariaga, CLAS \u201911, has always been an avid reader. As a child in Barrington, N.H., she would tear through 30 to 40 books each summer.<\/p>\n

But after taking a creative writing course at UConn, she discovered that a career as a best-selling author wasn\u2019t in her future. \u201cI didn\u2019t possess the raw talent, patience, or passion to write,\u201d she reflects. \u201cIt\u2019s a big moment when you realize everything you thought about yourself is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, she found a new interest in women\u2019s studies and human rights. \u201cI took two women\u2019s studies courses at the same time in the fall of sophomore year to fulfill general education requirements,\u201d she says, \u201cand from there it developed into a passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

That passion led Madariaga to volunteer for UConn\u2019s V-Day Campaign to End Violence Against Women. She started out as the chief financial officer, and quickly became enthralled with the work. This past year, she stepped up as director, coordinating the campaign and a successful production of The Vagina Monologues.<\/p>\n

\u201cDirecting the production was one of the greatest challenges and biggest rewards that I\u2019ve experienced in college,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Madariaga\u2019s academic work also reflects her commitment to the subject. Since UConn doesn\u2019t offer a major in human rights, she applied to the University Scholar program at the beginning of her junior year, and is currently creating an individualized major combining her interests in literature, women\u2019s studies, and human rights.<\/p>\n

But she still needed one specific topic for her research project.<\/p>\n

Drawn to Turkey\u2019s success with educational campaigns and its importance to U.S. foreign policy, Madariaga focused her attention on educational development there. She has spent the past two summers in Turkey, last year living in Izmir and this year studying access to education and its relation to gender equity in the country\u2019s capital, Ankara.<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t been easy, but Madariaga has proven that she\u2019s up for the challenge. During the first part of the summer, she received a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship and immersed herself in Turkey\u2019s language and culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe smallest things were my greatest accomplishments,\u201d she says, \u201cmaking reservations in Turkish, talking to the taxi drivers, eating real Turkish food with my host family every night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Campaign<\/p>\n

After her government grant ended, Madariaga spent the rest of the summer interviewing Turkish experts in the field of education. The Dean’s Fund in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences provided a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) grant as funding for her work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe grant allowed me to frame my critical analysis of my University Scholar project with knowledge from those actually working on issues in the country,\u201d she says, \u201cand they can help guide me on which subjects and factors I should focus on.\u201d The interviews provided the foundation for her research.<\/p>\n

Madariaga will complete her University Scholar project in the spring and graduate in May. She\u2019s not yet sure what she\u2019ll do in the immediate future, but traveling abroad or earning a master\u2019s degree in the U.K. are at the top of her list of possibilities.<\/p>\n

Although she no longer wants to be a famous author, Madariaga now has a new aspiration: \u201cI want to work in international education development, so that one day every girl has the opportunity to live up to her potential,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen a woman is educated, everybody\u2019s life improves.\u201d<\/p>\n

To support SURF and study abroad, please contact the <\/strong>development department<\/strong><\/a> at the UConn Foundation.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rachel Madariaga conducted research in Turkey with a summer research grant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-26536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 12:41:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26536"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44741,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26536\/revisions\/44741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26536"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=26536"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=26536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}