This workshop entitled "New Research on Gender in Political Psychology" brings together an international group of junior and senior scholars studying gender and political psychology in order to share their recent research, develop mentoring relationships, and facilitate publications of papers in high quality outlets. In addition, the conference will enable the discussion of teaching techniques in this area and will facilitate researchers to communicate their work to practioners.
The study of gender in political science addresses the problems of women's political underrepresentation. Many unanswered questions related to this can be addressed fruitfully by the application of psychological theoreis and concepts. This workshop will provide a forum for state-of-the-art research on gender and political psychology to be shared with and reviewed by leading scholars in the field. The small nature of the conference helps to ensure that it will provide opportunities for junior and senior scholars to read and react meaningfully to each other's work, to develop productive and supportive mentority relationships, to discuss possible collaborations, and to facilitate publication of the conference papers in high quality outlets.
The workshop will also assist junior scholars, primarily female junior scholars, in producing and publishing high quality research in order to achieve professional success, both at their institutions and in the discipline. The workshop gooals address specific problems cited in the 2005 American Political Science Association's "Women's Advancement in Political Science Report" including improvidng mentoring of junior female scholars and increasing the visibility of gender research in top journals. Overall, this concference is one step in helping to rectify the problem of a "leaky pipeline" for women and to assist scholarship on women and politics in gaining acceptance in the top journals.
" on March 4-5, 2011. There are more details on the conference website: http://genderandpolipsych.com/. The underlying motivation for the conference was that scholars who create research on women in politics are typically women, who are quite underrepresented in the field of political science. Further, research on female candidates and women voters is underrepresented in the discipline’s well-regarded publication outlets. Thus, this conference aimed to bring together approximately 30 junior and senior scholars who study gender and political psychology to a) share recent research as a means to facilitate the publication of research in this underrepresented area and b) develop strong mentoring relationships. Participants presented their research focusing on applying psychological research to understanding important political questions like why women remain underrepresented in political office as well as what explains various gender gaps in women’s political knowledge, political participation, and in pursuing political office. The conference was extremely successful in creating a strong network of scholars engaged in research in this area; this is one way to address the ‘leaky pipeline’ of young women scholars leaving the academy in their early years on the tenure track. One year after the conference, 70% have been in touch with someone from their mentoring group, one-third of the participants have worked on a research project or created a conference panel with another participation, and half have shared their writing and research with another participant. Junior conference participants report they feel more confident about publishing their work and about the tenure process. All of our participants report that they would participate in a conference like this one again. Finally, the conference participants discussed best practices in teaching about women and politics and connected with a panel of political consultants who advise female candidates. NSF’s contribution to this conference will have a lasting impact on creating high quality scholarly work on gender in political science, on the success of the people who produce this research, and on educating the students of those researchers.
