Psychology of Women and Equalities Section Annual Conference 2023

Submissions

Key submission dates

 

Authors are strongly advised to register on the on-line submission system and begin preparing their submissions well in advance of the following deadlines

If you wish to submit more than one abstract, please complete individual submissions for each.

How to Submit

Please ensure you read the submission guidelines below before submitting, including the reviewer guidelines. These allow you to see how your submissions will be reviewed.

Please make your submissions via  the online application portal by clicking the Submissions button below. You will need to create an account if this is your first time submitting. 

If you have any queries about submissions please contact us at [email protected]

Access Submission Guidelines and Submit Symposia 
 

Access Submission Guidelines and Submit All Submissions except Symposia 

Registration

Registration is available online only. 

Residential packages are now sold out and no longer available, and the Cumberland Lodge is now fully booked. 

For those who book alternative accommodation, please register for single or 3-day attendance as well as conference dinners.

A list of alternative accommodation options has been provided.

Download the list of alternative accommodation options

All rates listed are inclusive of VAT at 20%.

Early Rate

Early rates end on June 14 2023

Standard Rate 

Description of Packages 

Full-Residential Single Occupancy
Includes all 3 days of the conference, with B&B on 5th and 6th July, plus the conference dinner
Full-Residential Shared/Twin Occupancy
Includes all 3 days of the conference, with B&B on 5th and 6th July, plus the conference dinner

The below is the cost of dinner for non-residential delegates

Conference dinner only - £46 (5th July)
Conference dinner only - £46 (6th July)

Returning Customers (members and non-members)

In order to register for the event you will need to sign in using your BPS website log in details.

We have implemented a new Membership Database and if you haven't received your pre-registration email you will need to request your unique registration link.

Once you have the link, you can complete your registration on our portal.

Once you have registered on the portal please use your username and password to log in and register for the event.

If you have forgotten your log-in details, you can reset your username or password here.

Non-returning customers (members and non-members)

If you are not a returning customer, you will need to create your BPS account on the portal. The process is straightforward and takes just a few minutes.

Once you have registered on the portal please use your username and password to log in and register for the event.

Conference Bursaries and Concessions

Please note all conference bursaries have now been awarded.

 

 

Speakers

Our Keynote speakers this year are:

Dr. Suriyah Bi

Suriyah completed her BA (Hons) in Human Sciences at Magdalen College, University of Oxford (2014) during which she received a scholarship to study at Stanford University's Sophomore College. She then completed her MA at School of Oriental and African Studies (2015), then moving on to pursuing her PhD at University College London, which she completed in July 2019. During her final year of PhD she was a VAR fellow at Yale University's Department of Anthropology under Professor Marcia Inhorn's supervision. Since 2019, she has been teaching and lecturing at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London, and the University of Edinburgh. At Edinburgh she was also the Deputy Programme Director for Social Research. She has now joined Oxford University's School of Geography & Environment as a Departmental Lecturer, associated with Mansfield College.

She is also keen to channel her research findings into policies that can make positive social change at the grassroots level. She has founded the Equality Act Review in 2018 to protect and improve the Equality Act 2010 in order to create a just, fair, and equal society for all. She conducts various equality research through the organisation and employ this in the influencing of policy, by advising and briefing MPs and Ministers. She has previously worked as a researcher for the APPG on Muslim Women and APPG British Muslims.

Abstract

Title: Trapped in a Glass Rubik's Cube: Mapping the Intersections of Inequality and Psychology in Modern Day Britain

Industrial protests have shaken the nation at an unprecedented rate this year, with some industries such as nursing taken historic steps to demand fair pay against the backdrop of a cost-of-living crisis. Such collective form of protesting while creates awareness of the plight of workers, can simultaneously gloss over the individual, personal, and intimate forms of protests taken up by individuals in the workplace. In this lecture, I will consider such forms of protest alongside navigating risk and the act of both multiplying, and dividing the self, to advocate for oneself. Taking the Glass Rubiks cube model, I will demonstrate the way in which structural forces compound intersectionality. Implications for the Equality Act 2010 through the concept of dignity will also be considered. The aim of the lecture is to map the intersections of the inequality that arises from the personal and political struggles in the workplace, and their implications for psychological consequences for employees. In doing so, a lived and embodied experience of inequality is provided, encouraging reflections and considerations for both psychologists, and psychology as a discipline more broadly.

Dr. Petra Boynton

Petra Boynton is a Social Psychologist who supports universities, charities, research organisations and government departments to undertake and use research in inclusive, accessible, ethical and safe ways, with a key focus on mental health and wellbeing. Her background is in International Health Services Research, and she has applied her work through working as an Agony Aunt (advice columnist) for print, broadcast and online publications. She uses that experience to create self-help resources for researchers including The Research Companion: a practical guide for the social sciences, health and development (2nd Ed, 2016); Coping With Pregnancy Loss (2018); and Being Well In Academia: ways to feel stronger, safer and more connected  (2020).

Abstract

Title: "The wellbeing webinar is compulsory": reviewing and challenging the landscape around academic mental health and wellbeing

For many of us the last few years (or longer) have been disrupted, stressful and grief-ridden. The pandemic; political awareness and resistance; financial hardship; culture wars; cuts to services; growing waiting lists to access health services (if they exist at all); a deeper understanding of diverse mental health and disability; and widespread industrial action are shaping an environment where "academic mental health" can no longer be ignored. It has, of course, always been an issue for universities. But over the past decade mental health issues affecting students and staff have attracted interest from university management, media, unions, and funding councils. This is in part due to significant historical efforts by minoritized scholars to address the hidden curriculum. Alongside highlighting the harms, dangers, inequalities and barriers endemic in academia. Precarity, metrification, competition, bullying, harassment, inaccessibility and prejudice – all hallmarks of the neoliberal academy and toxic work and study spaces - have rightly been criticised.

Resistance, however, remains a challenge at the structural and personal level. Unsurprisingly we are noting high levels of trauma, burnout, anxiety, exhaustion, apathy and reduced confidence among students and staff working in all occupations within academic institutions and particularly among women, trans and non-binary people. This is matched by increased suspicion, impatience and resentment. Mentioning "mental health" can raise as much anger as it does interest (compounded if what is offered is unfit for purpose). And it does not help us address the most uncomfortable question of all – our role in academic systems that cause or worsen distress.

Solutions to the issue of academic mental health (it's never referred to as "academic mental illness") tend to follow UK, US and Australian medical models advocating short-term talking or App-based therapies; story sharing; or surveying student satisfaction. Not all interventions are benign and universities while publicly stating their commitment to academic mental health (and never missing a PR opportunity on awareness days) remain unwilling to address the well documented barriers and harms impacting on students and staff, including widening inequalities. Their model of practice protects institutional structures and reputations rather than those who work or study within universities.

This adversely affects us all, but particularly impacts on those already marginalised by academia, both in terms of support required and the ability to access assistance. Staff or students that are care experienced; first generation; people of the global majority; estranged from their families; living with severe mental illness; are parents or carers; LGBTQ+; disabled; part-time; self-funding; precarious; poor; refugees and asylum seekers; or living in insecure housing (and all intersections of these) may be especially vulnerable.  As someone who's been working on safety and wellbeing in universities for the past 25 years it is perhaps no surprise my focus is often on the most negative, frustrating and concerning aspects of academic spaces. However, I try where possible to maintain hope and so my keynote will be an invitation for us all to address and respond to our problems in academia within a space of comfort, compassion and pragmatism.

Following my keynote there will be a workshop to discuss academic mental health in a critical way, considering future plans for POWES, psychology, and applications in academic spaces and beyond. And throughout the final day of the conference I will be available for individual and small group consultations for anyone who wants to reflect on their own situation or make specific plans for research group, department, or campus. After the conference all resources collected will be archived and shared for use in teaching, research, pastoral care and whole-campus approaches to welfare and wellbeing. I am looking forward to receiving your questions and observations in advance, so my contributions are based on your needs.

Professor Trish Greenhalgh

Trish Greenhalgh is Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford. A medical doctor, she was introduced to the critical social sciences at an early age through spending a year studying Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge (1979-80) before completing her medical studies and going on to work in the NHS (mostly as a GP) for 30 years. She now co-leads (along with a professor of social policy) the Interdisciplinary Research in Health Sciences (IRIHS) research unit in which clinicians (including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, paramedics and pharmacists) work with non-clinicians (with backgrounds in sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, computer science, design, economics, engineering and management).

Abstract

Our research seeks to apply critical social science to address challenges in healthcare policy and practice.  On bad days, it feels we're either arguing fruitlessly amongst ourselves or engaged in an unwinnable battle with the epistemological monists who dominate in medical faculties. On good days, we achieve two streams of outputs: on the one hand, publications and talks for our medical colleagues, who typically value objectivity over reflexivity, method over theory, quantitative over qualitative methods, large over small sample sizes, and empirical studies over 'thought pieces'; and on the other hand, outputs for critical scholars—that is, people who view research as perspectival and knowledge as inextricably linked to power and vested interests, who generally prefer depth over breadth, and who are rarely interested in data without theory. This talk will offer two examples from Trish's attempts to 'face both ways' in interdisciplinary research: the sharing stories project and theorising digital exclusion.

The sharing stories project

Biomedical accounts of diabetes are typically reductive and neoliberal, talking in terms of risk states ('prediabetes'), biomarkers (such as HbA1c), 'control' (implicitly, metabolic but with psychological undertones), lifestyle 'choices' (not enough exercise and too much food) and medication. Thus framed, the diabetes epidemic gets to be described, analysed and addressed with little or no engagement with its structural causes (e.g. poverty, food insecurity, job precarity, poor housing, unsafe neighbourhoods, discrimination). However, when we discovered that Bangladeshi people with diabetes greatly valued oral storytelling (and that this sometimes prompted changes in behaviour), we decided to explore a radically different approach to diabetes management.  We introduced a model of group storytelling and trained bilingual health advocates in facilitating the groups. Medical sceptics demanded a randomised controlled trial, so we did one. We showed that the sharing stories model was as effective in controlling diabetes in minority ethnic groups as standard nurse-led didactic education, and that it produced greater patient enablement. More interestingly, and using multilingual researchers, we collected hundreds of stories which illuminated how diabetes was framed, experienced and navigated in 6 different ethnic groups. By comparing a theory-informed analysis of these stories with the 'objective' results of the RCT, we were able to systematically demonstrate how much richness had been missed. While the mainstream medics called this a 'non-inferiority study', we produced rich theorisations of the collective meaning-making and collective action achieved through group storytelling.  

Theorising digital exclusion from health and social care

The pandemic created a context for disruptive innovation. New technologies and service models (e.g. remote clinical consultations and social care support) were rapidly introduced. One unintended consequence was that groups with greatest need – those who lack access to and familiarity with information technology – are, paradoxically, most likely to be excluded from health care services. Evidence of inequities of access to remote health services during the pandemic is mounting up. But this literature has been poorly theorised, almost entirely biomedical in perspective and descriptive in nature. Most published studies are brief audits showing that certain subgroups such as the elderly, the poor, and minority ethnic groups were less able to access remote services. Biomedical authors have proposed lists of 'barriers' (such as lack of devices or lack of skills) and 'facilitators' (such as skills training); some recommend randomised controlled trials of interventions. RCTs have a limited place in this context, and under-theorised 'barriers-and-facilitators' studies also add little. We have begun to develop a stronger theorisation of digital inequalities in health and care, including critical perspectives on (among other things) intersectionality, digital capital and fundamental causes. 

Location

The POWES conference will take place at Cumberland lodge which is a registered charity whose mission is to empower people, through open dialogue and debate, to tackle the causes and effects of social division. It is based in a 17th-century, former royal residence in the heart of Windsor Great Park. For more information about Cumberland lodge please see https://www.cumberlandlodge.ac.uk/

Cumberland Lodge Address

Cumberland Lodge, The Great Park, Windsor, SL4 2HP

How to Find Cumberland Lodge

Access the map

Accommodation

Please note: the Cumberland Lodge is now fully booked. A list of alternative accommodation options has been provided.

Download the list of alternative accommodation options

 

 

 

Have a query?

Contact us at [email protected]