CONFERENCE REGISTRATION

Registration is OPEN! Early Bird Registration Ends SEPTEMBER 1st!

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CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The American Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African Psychological Association (AMENA-Psy) is hosting our second AMENA-Psy Conference. The conference is designed to balance the delivery of content and opportunity for interactive discussion between attendees and presenters in a virtual environment. We invite AMENA-Psy members and non-members to join us!

The theme of the conference this year is MENA Matters: Increasing Visibility in Psychology. The conference theme has two meanings:

1. MENA Matters speaks to AMENA-Psy’s mission to advocate for MENA inclusion in the US social fabric and racial dialogue. It refers to the imperativeness of advocating for MENA recognition in the US, as the lack of such legal, and subsequently, social recognition has had significant negative implications. The lack of recognition of MENA has led to the failure in documenting mounting hate crimes against the community and has also hindered the community’s sense of belonging.
2. MENA Matters also speaks to the importance of bringing a spotlight to MENA matters, including the similarities in MENA experiences, while also honoring and creating space to dissect the existing nuances. It reiterates that a MENA experience deserves acknowledgment and recognition. 

Accordingly, given the dearth of psychological research focused on MENA, we invite proposals related, but not limited, to:

Identity, exclusion, and visibility 

Experiences of racial discrimination and ethnic oppression

Methods & Theory: Assessment, modeling, sampling

Social reform, solidarity, and scholar-activism

Immigration and immigration reform

Resilience and protective factors

Development across the lifespan & family context

Identity development and impact of intersectional identities

Culturally-informed and MENA-inclusive curricula, practice, and training

We encourage individuals from all fields of psychology, including educational/school, social, health, developmental, community, I/O, counseling, clinical, international and beyond, to submit proposals. Submissions from multidisciplinary, international, and student scholars are welcome! 

Important Dates

Deadline for proposal submission: July 1, 2021. The deadline is extended through July 8th!

Conference Dates: September 24 - 25, 2021 (Friday & Saturday)

Time: Friday 12 pm - 5pm EST, Saturday 10 am - 5pm EST

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Please see the Submission Guide for Proposals Handout for detailed information on presentation types, proposal formatting, and step-by-step instructions for submission.

Brief Description of Presentation Types:

PAPER: Papers will be orally presented to an audience, and the author(s) can decide on the format of the presentation, including whether there will be any visual aids. This should be a formal presentation of theoretical issues, original data collection, clinical case material, treatment methods, and/or program evaluations and descriptions (50 minutes).

ROUNDTABLE: Roundtables provide a small group forum for discussion and debate of a specific topic. Facilitators open this session type with brief remarks or viewpoints on a specific topic that can be discussed with the audience. This format is especially appropriate for exploration and feedback of a topic, engaging in in-depth discussion or debate, and meeting colleagues with similar interests (50 minutes). 

SYMPOSIUM: A symposium is a session focused on a common issue in which individual authors present their diverse views with the goal of integrating the perspectives into a meaningful whole. Symposia do not focus on only one paper but are meant to involve multiple authors to present in-depth knowledge around common themes within clinical practice, research, training, and/or policy; a discussant is optional (50 minutes).

POSTER: Visually inviting presentation of an individual study or project, including graphs, tables, pictures, etc. Posters should highlight the key components of the particular type of work. Presenters must be available for discussion of their work at the poster session. In an effort to increase opportunities for masters and doctoral students in psychology to present their scholarship, we encourage students to be first authors on poster presentations.  

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION MATERIALS & PROCEDURES

We are no longer accepting proposals at this time

To submit your proposal for consideration, you will need to complete the following:

1. Respond to all questions in our submission portal via Google Forms. 
2. Upload CV’s for each author in the Google Form.
3. Upload abstract as MS Word document in the Google Form, following the format and abstract guidelines outlined in the Submission Guide for Proposals Handout 

Submitting a proposal implies a commitment to attend the conference and deliver the proposed presentation if accepted. The first author should deliver the presentation. All presenters and attendees must register for the conference.  

All submissions must consist of the following:

• Abstract: A 250-500-word abstract describing the proposed session and scholarly references 
• Short description of the presentations tie to the theme
• Curriculum vitae

Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Relevance to the conference theme 
• Contribution to the field of MENA Psychology through empirical quantitative and qualitative research, theory, practice, training and education, and/or advocacy,
• Organization, clarity, and quality of writing.

Notice of Acceptance/Rejection: Notification of acceptance or rejection of proposals will be made to the corresponding author via email before August 15th, 2021. The corresponding author has the responsibility to inform other authors of all communications.

Check back for news and updates!

PLANNING COMMITTEE

Conference Co-Chairs: Bahaur Amini & Danna Bismar 

Programming Co-Chairs: Rawan Atari & Laila Abdel-salam

Committee Members: Mohamed Abdallah, Zainab Akef, Germine Awad, Nabil El-Ghoroury, Negar Fani,

Nicole Fleischer, Haleh Jortani, Layli Khaghani, Rebecca Moussa, and Maya Salameh

QUESTIONS?

amenapsyconference@gmail.com