PROVIDENCE, R.I.--Brown University's newly formed women's research center recently received a $234,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to finance its first program, a three-year study on the "Cultural Constructions of the Female."

The project will investigate ways in which culture defines gender, Joan Scott, director of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, said earlier this month, the Brown Daily Herald reported.

The Ford grant "will permit us to become a national center for the study of culture and gender," Scott said, adding that no other school is concentrating its efforts on this topic.

Scott said she hopes the project will help develop more women's studies courses in departments that have none. Brown currently has no women's studies department.

The Pembroke Center was established last spring to conduct "research on sex roles, sex differences, and the status of women and men in society," Scott said.

The Ford project will award two fellowships to Brown faculty and four postdoctoral fellowships every year for a three-year period beginning next year. Eight visiting scholars will also be invited to participate in week-long research seminars every year.