We hosted our 2nd Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace Conference at the University of Reading, UK on Tuesday 11th June 2024, following on from our successful 1st Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace Conference. Thank you to everyone who participated and especially our speakers. This interdisciplinary conference was aimed at academics, practitioners and employers interested in issues of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and their implications for workplace practice. You can catch up with the presentations below:
Professor Sarah Jewell from the University of Reading kicked off the conference providing insights from the ‘Maternal well-being, infant feeding and return to paid work’ study she is leading which is being funded by the Nuffield Foundation. You can hear Sarah’s presentation below. However, due to technical problems the start of the presentation is missing but we also hosted a conference a week later dedicated to the ‘Maternal well-being, infant feeding and return to paid work’ study with all the recordings available on the conference’s webpage if you wish to catch up with that conference.
We then heard from Madeline Best who is a PhD student based in the Institute of Education at the University of Reading. Madeline talked about her PhD research which is focusing on ‘Teacher-mothers: the challenges faced when returning from parental leave;. You can catch up on Madeline’s presentation below:
Dr Samantha Evans from the University of Kent started the second session talking about her British Academy small grant study: ‘Addressing the class bias in research on the menopause – exploring the lived experiences of menopausal women in the workplace’. The pilot study is taking place at the University of Kent and fills an important gap in the literature on menopause in the workplace. You can catch up on Samantha’s presentation below:
Dr Clarice Santos from Middlesex University then joined us on line to discuss her research ‘A balancing act? A critical exploration of work-family dynamics, discussing experiences of Brazilian migrants, a topic close to her heart. You can catch up on her presentation below:
Dr Karen Jones from the University of Reading was first on after lunch, talking about ‘Racism and sexism are permitted by default: a study of UK Higher Education. You can catch up on Karen’s presentation below:
Tanya Linaker based at Kings College London, but also doing a professional doctorate at the University of Reading, presented her work on ‘Leadership identity construction of middle managers of Russian and Arabic ethnic origin in the context of the Institute Wide Language Programmes’: You can catch up with Tanya’s presentation below:
The final presentation was by Dr Frances Hamilton who introduced the LGBTQ+ travel tool, an interactive policy development tool. You can catch up on Frances’ presentation below and find out and use the tool on the toolkit’s website.
If you would like to follow up with anything please feel free to contact Professor Sarah Jewell: s.l.jewell@reading.ac,uk.
We are already looking forward to the 3rd Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace conference with more details due in late 2024/early 2025. We are also planning a webinar series (starting in Autumn) with more details to follow in due course. If you are interested in presenting in the webinar series please contact Professor Sarah Jewell: s.l.jewell@reading.ac.uk.