Call for Papers: Special Issue on Social Psychology and Citizenship

Posted by on October 26, 2009

Call for Papers

Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology
Special Issue:  Social Psychology and Citizenship.

Guest Editor:
Susan Condor  (Lancaster University, UK)

Background:

The concept of citizenship is generally understood to comprise three elements: the legal (involving civil and social rights); the political (involving active participation in political decision making), and the psychological (involving community membership and identity).

Although the past twenty years have witnessed a dramatic increase in work addressing the legal and political aspects of citizenship, the psychological dimensions remain under-theorized and under-researched.  Academic texts and policy documents on citizenship seldom refer to psychological research, theories or constructs.  Conversely, although social and community psychologists often tackle topics relating to social identity, social inclusion, discrimination and political behaviour, they rarely address academic or policy debates relating to citizenship directly. Most psychological research that uses the term “citizenship” currently involves work on “organizational citizenship”, focusing exclusively on the sphere of workplace relations.

The Special Issue on Social Psychology and Citizenship will bring together a set of papers by social and community psychologists on issues pertaining to the relationship between individuals and political communities. The general objectives are: (1) To highlight the potential for current understandings of citizenship to be enhanced through the application of psychological theories, constructs and methods.  (2) To exemplify the range of ways in which psychological theory and research may be applied to issues relating to citizenship in different national and cultural contexts. (3) To reflect constructively on current aspects of social psychology practice which may set limits on the capacity of the sub-discipline to engage fully with matters relating to citizenship.

Submissions are invited in the form of theoretical articles or original reports of experimental, survey or qualitative studies (including action research) relating to the social psychological study of citizenship. Examples of topics include, but are not limited to:

•    Belonging and community cohesion: Social solidarity, inclusion and exclusion.
•    Universalist and differentialist conceptions of citizenship: Assimilationism and multiculturalism.
•    Active citizenship: Political mobilization and participation.
•    Horizontal citizenship: Community involvement, identity and interaction.
•    Mediated citizenship.
•    Social representations and negotiations of rights and obligations.
•    Cross-cultural studies of citizenship.
•    Boundaries of citizenship: State and nation as citizenship communities; International (e.g. EU) citizenship; Diasporic citizenship; Global citizenship; Cosmopolitanism.

Papers should comply with the Author Guidelines of The Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, available on at:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5625/home/ForAuthors.html

Manuscripts (maximum 6,000 words) should be submitted to the guest editor (s.condor@lancaster.ac.uk) by e-mail attachment (WORD format) no later than 31 May 2010.