March: Dr. April-Louise Pennant’s Book Launch and International Women’s Day

Date and Time: 8 March 2024, 3-4.30pm Glamorgan Building. Committee Room 2.

Join MEAD to celebrate the publication of Dr April-Louise Pennant’s first book Babygirl, You’ve Got This!: Experiences of Black Girls and Women in the English Education System and International Women’s day!

May: Faaiza Bashir, Business School, Cardiff University

What does the practice of anti-racism reveal about leadership and organisational culture? – developing my doctoral research in Wales.

Date and Time: 8 May 2024, 1-2pm.  Online (zoom)

May: Dementia Awareness Week (In-person event)

Led by the Alzheimer’s Society and supported by Dr Sofia Vougioukalou (CARE) & Kemba Hadaway-Morgan (SOCSI), Grangetown Pavillion

Date and Time: 15 May 2024, 3.30-5.30pm

Past events

Ethnic Disproportionality in the Child Welfare System in Wales: a Linked Administrative Data Study (Dr Yongchao Jing, Research Associate, CASCADE)

Wed 11 October (1-2pm) Online

Email Mead for the Zoom link

Abstract

A long-identified concern in the field of child welfare is that ethnic minority children are overrepresented in the child welfare system compared to their percentage in the total population, a phenomenon commonly referred to as racial/ethnic disproportionality. This pattern of intervention is troubling because it results from ethnic bias in the child welfare system and/or systematic socioeconomic disadvantages for ethnic families, both of which reflect ethnic inequality that needs to be addressed. Research on ethnic disproportionality in the UK is still scarce, mostly in England and focused on Children Looked After and Children on Protection Register, rather than the wider population of Children in Need. Drawing on the population-based Children in Need/Children Receiving Care and Support (CIN/CRCS) administrative records, we link these records to Census 2011 to improve the missing data of ethnicity on children in the welfare system. Our analyses describe the level of ethnic disproportionality for CIN/CRCS from 2011 to 2020. Ethnic disproportionality provides not only compelling insights into patterns of existing inequalities, it also raises further questions on interventions as how to improve children’s welfare service for social equity. This research advances the field in several important ways. First, we improve data quality of CIN/CRCS by data linkage. Second, we explore the wider and under-researched group of CIN/CRCS. Third, we are the first in the UK to describe the trend of ethnic disproportionality over a 10-year period. Fourth, the observation window of this research covers a period that coincides with both the change of legal framework in the definition of children for whom data are collected first seen in 2017 and the 2019-2020 years with COVID-19 pandemic disruptions, offering a rare opportunity to observe how administrative changes and exogenous interruptions may affect the level of ethnic disproportionality observed in the child welfare system.

Biography

Dr Yongchao Jing holds a DPhil in Sociology from the University of Oxford. Before joining CASCADE, her work on labour market inequality analysed cross-national survey data with quantitative methods. She was also involved in projects on migration and children’s mental and physical health. She is now a Research Associate on a Health and Care Research Wales funded project Ethnic and Religious Inequalities in Children Welfare (ERICA) exploring ethnic inequality in children’s social care by applying complex data linkage techniques with administrative data in Wales within SAIL databank.

Ethnicity and diversity research and practice at SPARK  – the UK’s first social science innovation park

Friday10th of November 2023, 10-12 noon, SPARK room 0.47

Organisers: Anna Skeels (SPARK Hub) and Sofia Vougioukalou (MEAD & SOCSCI)

This networking session is jointly organised by the SPARK Hub and MEAD the Migration, Race, Ethnicity and Diversity Research group at SOCSCI. It is aimed at researchers and professionals based in or affiliated with SPARK. The session will include lightning talks (3-5 minute inputs) and small group discussions. It is aimed at fostering greater collaborations between academia, third-sector organisations, public bodies and the Welsh Government and can lead to the development of new projects. Please register your interest in presenting your work, please email skeelsa1@cardiff.ac.uk with a few sentences about the work you’d like to present by the 30th of September.

The inaugural MEAD Conference was held on 13th July 2022 at Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building. We received a diverge range of submissions under the main theme of “Migration, Race, Ethnicity and Diversity in Post-Brexit Pandemic Britain” and the following sub-themes:

• COVID-19 and the Black and Minoritised communities
• Renewed hostility against immigrants and asylum seekers
• Post-Brexit migration and mobilities – international and regional
• Anti-racist and inclusive curriculum in education
• Inclusive leadership and EDI in the Workplace
• Sexual and gender-based violence against migrant women and girls
• Racial, ethnic and religious intersectional inequalities
• Cultural competence in health and social care

Delegates from all over Wales and England arrived for our first major in-person conference in the School of Social Sciences since the pandemic. Professor Urfan Khaliq, our Pro-Vice Chancellor and the Head of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences gave the opening welcome address, highlighting the unique space MEAD provides – a diverse cross-college interdisciplinary research group that brings together black and minoritised scholars doing research on migration, ethnicity, race and diversity and a space that promotes the co-production of knowledge with external partners and local communities.

Plenary sessions and panel discussions by senior scholars addressed key issues in migration, ethnicity, diversity research and practice in a post-pandemic world. Professor Steve Garner (Texas A&M University) discussed institutional obstructions by the state in France and the US to block antiracist advances in the age of cancel culture, highlighting the changing narrative on critical race theory, especially in the school curriculum in an increasing number of states in the US. Dr Katy Greenland (Cardiff University) offered insights on the often narrow and inconsistent definitional boundaries of discrimination, which are consequential for all kind of decision making. Michelle Alexis shared her rich experience in championing racial equality and diversity initiatives within a university context and how she fought inequalities from within through innovative strategy, sustainable change, accountability, authenticity and much more.

Time for networking and further discussion was carved into the programme during the plenary sessions with addresses from Professor Charlotte Williams (Bangor University) and Professor Uzo Iwobi (Race Council Cymru) highlighting potential research agenda and collaborative opportunities. We ended the day with a wine reception, toasting with apple juice and a very aptly named MEAD honey wine. We would like to give special thanks to all keynote speakers, panelists and participants for sharing their research and lived experiences in higher education. And above all the SOCSI Research Team, the Catering Team and the MEAD Organising Committee for their stellar effort in making the conference a success. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback such as this from one participant:

“I just wanted to express how impressed I was by the overall professional way the MEAD Conference was conducted. I think the best part for me was knowing that I was not alone in this field of research and that amazing research was going on. I quite liked the diversity amongst the speakers and the broad research areas that were presented….The key note speakers were also great….knowing that this conference had academics such as Professor Uzo, Prof Charlotte Williams in attendance, made me excited that I would have the opportunity to meet such high profile academics. Food and refreshments were also outstanding and there was more than enough for everyone to enjoy seconds. I would definitely give the MEAD Conference a 5 out of 5 stars. Looking forward to the next one”

What would the conference be without photos! Attendees were encouraged to post on their socials and use the hashtag #meadconf22 to create more publicity and reference for future conferences. As we look forward to the next MEAD Conference, if you are not already on our mailing list, do drop us an email mead@cardiff.ac.uk to subscribe and keep in touch.

The conference received generous support from the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University and was co-sponsored by the open access journal Frontiers in Sociology – Race and Ethnicity. It is intended that a selection of the conference proceedings will be submitted to a Special Issue for Frontiers in Sociology: Race and Ethnicity. All publications will be subject to peer- review. The deadline for abstract submission to the Special issue is 30 September with a full-text submission expected in January 2023.