At the 2016 International APS congress in Melbourne last week, Fatima Azam, UON psychology honours student was awarded the 2016 APS Peace prize. This in recognition of her research on the social psychological factors that make some people open to approaching diversity in society and others avoidant of these groups. Under the supervision of Dr Stefania Paolini, Fatima investigated these dynamics in non-Muslim women’s responses to an educational Muslim-led hijab stall run on university campuses.
Researchers at the APS psychologists for peace symposium praised the uniqueness of Fatima’s study design which incorporated a peace-making initiative building bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims within the community with a research team of 30+ individuals of varied backgrounds. They see this design and partnership model as the way forward in psychological research and encouraged other researchers to incorporate peace-making initiatives as part of their future study designs.
Fatima has been invited to drive with Stefania’s help the establishment of a NSW Psychologists for Peace interest group.
At the 2016 International APS congress in Melbourne last week, Peacemaking was very much a theme of this year’s APS conference. Its annual meeting is likely to make history for a milestone in the Reconciliation process. The society formally apologised with First Australians for psychologists contributing to the exploitation or mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with misplaced research, past use of assessment tools, or silence.
To learn more about this significant development, click here.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/15/psychologists-apologise-to-indigenous-australians-for-decades-of-mistreatment
