Two recent panels at annual meetings engaged colleagues in a robust discussion of world history’s relevance to different sectors of the profession as a whole. One, for high school teachers, centered gender: at NCSS in December 2024 a women’s history panel attracted over 80 people. A month later at the 2025 AHA, panelists from top research 1 universities queried why the field “has not attracted many scholars who prioritize race and diversity” and continues to focus on capitalism and therefore European imperialism. They wondered whether it is necessary anymore “to differentiate world history from other transregional scholarship.” While these meetings, constituencies and formats differed, both directly or indirectly implied that world history must be more inclusive. What if these two sectors of the history profession were in the same room?

This proposed roundtable is a continuation and merging of those conversations with a different slate of conversants and perspectives, including those of us who teach at public undergraduate institutions. Crucially, we are also actively engaged in feminist collaboration and community building as authors in Routledge’s book series, “Gendering World History.” We claim that the practice of world history both enables and needs collaborations such as ours. World historians who center gender tend to de center capitalism and do in fact prioritize race and diversity. Centering gender disrupts historians’ focus on events, periodization, and the nation. By de-centering political specificities, world history goes farther than transregional scholarship, while at the same time resisting Big History’s erasure of individual people’s experiences. On topics as diverse as revolutions, friendship, multi-racial relationships, food, law, and health, we cite the continuing robust debates about our sources, methods, and scope. We cite the growth in world history courses at all levels and especially in High Schools. We share strategies for assuring the inclusivity of world history as a knowledge domain, pedagogy, and scholarly practice when gender is at the center.