WORKGROUPS
Faculty members and students in the program often meet in what are called "workgroups" where they read about and discuss a certain common area of interest either directly or indirectly related to social-personality psychology. The following are some of the workgroups that meet periodically throughout the year:
- Moral Exclusion and Injustice
- Intergroup Relations & Prejudice Lab
- Film, Video, Photography
- Studying Sexuality
- Critical Consciousness/Free Spaces Seminar
- Teaching Tolerance
Moral Exclusion and Injustice
Facilitator: Susan Opotow, Ph.D.
Susan Opotow studies the social psychology of moral inclusion and exclusion, conflict, injustice, violence, aggression, hate, in a variety of contexts including post-war reconstruction, environment conservation, class cutting in high school, social policy conflicts, and hate crime. She will lead a workgroup of students interested in moral exclusion, social injustice, and the process of building an inclusionary ethos. Workgroup meetings will allow students to think about and present their work and develop a variety of skills that will be help their development as scholars.
Intergroup Relations & Prejudice Lab
Facilitator: Demis Glasford, Ph.D.
The intergroup relations and prejudice (IRP) lab will be a weekly meeting that will give students interested in IRP-related topics an opportunity to develop their research ideas. Each week a person will present a research-related issue and the group will give the person critical feedback to help improve the work. More specifically, the meeting will focus, but not be limited to, the following: (a) discussion of new ideas, (b) design and development of research materials and (c) manuscript preparation. Demis Glasford will be the primary faculty member involved and discussion will be more focused on experimental work. The meeting, however, is open, and may be beneficial, to all students studying IRP topics. Moreover, to give students a different perspective (e.g., on the publication process) or when particular issues are discussed (e.g., field work), available faculty with relevant expertise will be asked to attend and give their thoughts on the topic.
Film, Video, Photography: Ways to go beyond the typical text for the representation of theory and data
Facilitator:
Judith Kuppersmith, Ph.D.
After I saw Fred Wiseman's documentary film, Titicut Follies (1967) I thought I had to give up psychology for film. Instead, I went to study cinema verite in 1978 at The University Film Study Institute (MIT and Harvard) and thereafter began to use film, video and some still photography as my research tools for psychology. I have produced three video essays where I think "reality speaks for itself". Video can be in your hands as a way to collect your data, to make a persuasive argument in your subject's own voice(s), to integrate the study of juicey psychological variables, to reveal research findings, to do intensive interviews that reveal the whole person(s). Video can be in the hands of your subjects and they can become agents for themselves and for others like them. Video can be interactive. When showing my work I insist on being in conversation with the audience so that we can all work it through and take away stuff …..like concepts and theories. Join me in a monthly work group at the Graduate Center on Wednesdays (we will work out a time) to explore this methodology. Bring a filming device of your own.
Studying Sexuality Lab
Facilitator:
Deborah Tolman, Ph.D.
I would like to invite students and faculty with a new or renewable or dogged interest in studying sexuality as a social scientist, to an informal yet structured conversation on a regular basis. Based on the group’s interest and commitment, we will meet every other week for 1-2 hours and (check all that apply): 1) consider key sexuality theorists (i.e., Foucault, Butler, Hill Collins, Feinberg, Fausto-Sterling) and how their perspectives might shape research; 2) how to weave together sexuality and discipline-based theories in developing a research project; 3) unpack quandaries and pragmatics that are especially challenging in studying sexuality; 4) discuss proposals for specific research projects on which members are working.
Critical Consciousness/Free Spaces Seminar
Facilitator:
Michelle Fine, Ph.D.
This group offers a venue for sharing shared intellectual interests around critique/dissent/critical consciousness and participatory methods. Foci include but are not limited to: conceptualizing and assessing critical consciousness and collective responsibility within areas of mass incarceration, sites of resiliency, critical youth media, disability consciousness, critical race theory, LGBTQ populations, class and higher education, contact zones, etc; inventing a conversation across shared theoretical readings; and diving into context-specific readings and data from active projects to continually interrogate the interaction of social and individual action/agency/influence/etc.
Teaching Tolerance: Building Positive Behavior and Student Activism in Schools
Facilitator: Deborah L. Vietze, Ph.D.
Some of the work of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)1, founded by Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin, focuses on developing and distributing web-based and classroom-based curricula and programs to teach tolerance and student activism in schools. Many of these programs are quite innovative in creating a context for social justice in schools and neighborhoods that are often under social and economic stress-the roots of social injustice and discrimination. However these programs have not been well studied and/or evaluated. Students interested in pro-social behavior, participatory action research, and developmental models may be interested in meeting over several weeks to explore developing a collaborative research project, incorporating several linked studies, based on examining the impact of these programs on students, teachers and communities from a positive psychology and narrative framework and seeking funding for such. It might also be helpful to assess the potential impact of the programs based on the theoretical assumptions they make about inner-group and inter-group conflict and the process and the nature of development during childhood and adolescence. The use of these materials in adolescence provide a particularly compelling platform for examining the development of political, and other identity processes during adolescence.