A committed group of social cohesion scholars within UON’s School of Psychology has recently established NORCCC, “Newcastle-Oxford Research Centre for Conflict and Cohesion” [see NORCCC profile
HERE], around the appointment of Prof
Miles Hewstone as UON Global Innovation Chair in Social Cohesion to help us deepen our understanding of intergroup friction and find ways that encourage social cohesion in Australia and around the world.
Dramatic events like the tragic Christchurch shooting, but equally ordinary experiences of daily discrimination for many of us are salient reminders of the importance of evidence-based analyses of individual-level factors and societal dynamics responsible for acts of discrimination, prejudice, and hatred. They remind us of the need to inform policies and interventions that support social cohesion along a multiplicity of social dimensions, like ethnicity, age, gender, sexuality, ill-health and disability, in Australia and internationally.
In this spirit, NORCCC is proud to announce an upcoming Newcastle-based international conference on social cohesion: The 2019 SASP-SPSSI medium group meeting, entitled “Advances in Intergroup Contact Research: Showcasing, Consolidating, Deconstructing and Innovating the Science of Social Integration” will gather 70-100 researchers and industry observers in Newcastle, between Monday 29th April and Wed 1st May, 2019.
This exciting specialised meeting of experts will be led by UON A/Prof Stefania Paolini, an enthusiastic scientific committee that spans across three continents, including also Prof Miles Hewstone (UON/Oxford), Prof Fiona White (USydney), A/Prof Fiona Barlow (UQ), Prof Linda Tropp (UMassachusetts Amherst, USA), Prof Liz Page-Gould (Uof Toronto, Canada), Prof Rhiannon Turner (Queen's University Belfast, UK) and Prof Angel Gomez (National Distance Education University, Spain), and a tireless local committee of 20+ graduate students.
The SASP-SPSSI group meeting
on intergroup contact aspires to offer an exciting platform to
consolidate our understanding and interpretation of key findings, to
discuss emerging research trends and methodologies and forge the
research and the researchers of the future. The expert gathering will include the delivery of conference papers
(blitz / longer length / posters) by junior and senior researchers and
roundtable discussions (small / plenary).
For more information about the conference, visit the conference website
HERE
If you are interested in attending the meeting as social cohesion researcher, practitioner or policy maker in areas of social cohesion, make contact with the lead organizer at:
Stefania.Paolini@Newcastle.edu.au to enquire. The conference includes networking segments and will allow for a number of non-presenting participants.
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