SPSSI and The Clara Mayo Grants @spssi #discrimination #causeachatter @blogchatter #Sexism #Racism #Prejudice @aikawa_26 @Laura_A_Pazos

SPSSI stands for Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. The Clara Mayo Grants is in support of Masters' theses and Pre-Dissertation Research on Sexism, Racism, or Prejudice. The preference is given to the students who enroll in a terminal master's program. The students who can apply for the Clara Mayo Grants must be involved in the studies of the application of the theory of the design of interventions or treatments to address these problems. For eligibility of this grant, an individual must be a registered member of SPSSI. He/She must have matriculated in any of the graduate programs in psychology, applied social science, and related disciplines. A student can either apply for a Grants-In-Aids or the Clara Mayo award in the same award year. Any applicant can submit only one Clara Mayo Grant application in a calendar year. The grant is awarded twice a year. There are two rounds - Spring round and Fall round. The deadline for submitting application for the Spring round is May 15 and for the Fall round is October 15. The winners for the Spring round are declared by July 15. The winners for the Fall round are declared by December 15. 

A maximum of six grants are awarded each cycle. The maximum amount of any grant is $1,000. Though preference is given to proposals that include a college or university agreement in order to match the amount requested, but proposals without matching funds are also considered for the Clara Mayo Grant. Late applications in both the rounds are held until the next deadline. The award money is sponsored by SPSSI Clara Mayo Memorial Fund which is made possible by contributions from the family and friends of Professor Clara Mayo and by SPSSI member donations. Applications for this award can be submitted online here. 

Let's congratulate the Fall 2022 winners of the Clara Mayo Grants Program. Fall 2022 Clara Mayo Grants recipients are:

Sheba Aikawa (University of Colorado Boulder)

Untrustworthy ally: The unintended consequences of messages targeting Black women

Samuel Carr (Northeastern University)

Gender Inclusive Movement for Youth in K-12 Schools: An Exploratory Study

Elise Kaufman (University of Maryland, College Park)

Children’s Evaluations about Teacher and Peer Bias in the Classroom Context

Liora Morhayim (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

Buffering Effects of Negative Intergroup Contact through Complex Social Identities

Laura Pazos (University of Reno, Nevada)

Perceptions of Gender Nonconforming Child Bearers and Abortion in the Wake of Overturning Roe v. Wade

Yiwei Quan (University of Toronto)

Chinese international students and anti-Asian racism on campus in Canada: Advocacy, coping strategies, and social media discourse

This post is part of Blogchatter’s CauseAChatter

Message In A Bottle On The Beach #BlogchatterBlogHop #discrimination #CauseAChatter

I found a message in a bottle on the beach that is very much opposite to the Queen's Palace in Den Haag. The name of the beach is Scheveningen Beach. Another name for Den Haag is The Hague. The Hague is a calm and beautiful city on the North Sea coast of the western Netherlands. The life stops here after 7.30pm. Its Gothic-style Binnenhof (or Inner Court) complex is the seat of the Dutch parliament. 16th-century Noordeinde Palace here is the king’s workplace. The city is also home to the U.N.’s International Court of Justice, headquartered in the Peace Palace, and the International Criminal Court. I was staying at Tulip Hotel that was quite close by to this beach. You can go by walk or take a tram. It's around 2 kilometers from that hotel. It is very interesting to know why is it called Den Haag.

Photo credit: harry_nl on Visualhunt.com

The official name Den Haag from Des Graven Hage, which means “the counts' hedge” and refers to the fact that Dutch noblemen once used the land for hunting. Well, that was my first visit to tht beach. A number of people of various ages were sitting in a row on the wall adjacent to the beach with their fishing nets dropped in the sea waters hunting for fish for their dinners. Before getting myself into the waters for a quick swim, I climbed up the huge tower situated on the beach. From the top, it was a great panoramic view of the city. After coming down, I jumped into the sea and while swimming, I found a bottle that was coming towards me. Curiosity sake, I came back on the beach holding that bottle with a tight cork on it.

Inside, I could see a rolled paper and I eagerly pulled out that paper ensuring it doesn't get torn. Unfolding it showed me a wonderful message, "Discrimination due to age is one of the great tragedies of modern life. The desire to work and be useful is what makes life worth living, and to be told your efforts are not needed because you are the wrong age is a crime." - Johnny Ball. That was amazing and so insightful. Life stops only when we stop flowing with its dynamics. It happens only if we surrender or other's discrimination towards it makes it happen when we start aging. That was my golden period of youth and I was there in Netherlands on an official project. This quote just settled smoothly in my heart and mind immediately and that's when I decided I will never let anybody narrate me, or rather dictate me at my later years what I am capable of doing and what I'm not capable of doing.

I promised myself nobody will be able to play with my knowledge or emotions by means of any kind of discrimination. I started planning accordingly to ensure I stay my boss all the time, especially during those later years when age discrimination begins. That's why I can say very confidently whatever you do in your profession, wherever you are in you growth journey, never surrender to any kind of discrimination or similar kind of pressures from others, be it anybody. Don't allow anybody to drift you away from your mainstream life and its charms and challenges. 

This post is part of Blogchatter’s CauseAChatter

This post is a part of Blogchatter Blog Hop

Childhood Discrimination #childhood #discrimination #CauseAChatter

Childhood and discrimination had started to form an unbreakable relationship as soon as I was born. Everything that is taught to us in our childhood, it is not necessary that it should be right and just. Actually, right and wrong is also a debatable issue. We always believe that if one is right then the other must be wrong. Between husband and wife, siblings, friends, neighbors, nations, the same thing has happened and keeps happening. If my point of view tells me one thing is correct, then it is not necessary that others should also look at that thing from the same point of view. He may have a different aspect of his own. Just like this, the basis of my childhood discrimination began as early as I started understanding the things around, or may be much before that.

Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue on Visualhunt.com

This is what it looks like, this is what it doesn't looks like, form a kind of base to start judging people and things. An immature mind always gets biased because of other's biases. For instance, you only have to be friends with boys because you are a boy. Stay away from boys with weaker mind than you in the class, otherwise you will become weak in studies. Don't talk to that boy at all, he doesn't know anything. Every elder in the family has to be given full respect and everyone has to live up to their expectations. Does it lead always to right path? Doesn't it spoil young minds. Many times, it came to my mind that if the mind had not come under all these assumptions and temptations of others since childhood and had learned in a natural way without any pressure, then perhaps I would have become the owner of a much stronger personality later on.

This process goes on continuously in every family. From one generation to the second, second to third, third to fourth, and so on. We realize, but we never stop. There is no end to it. After growing up, I definitely remember these things. Had I not been taught this wrong thing? If only I had been shown its true form.? If that were the case? If that was not the case? But even after realizing all this, do we become right? Do we ever put a full stop to child discrimination? Do we ever seriously think about it and take our first step towards unbiasing the biased minds?

This post is part of Blogchatter’s CauseAChatter