Michelle Dion, Tina Fetner, and Melanie Heath receive SSHRC Connections Grant for Intersections: Social Policy & Sexuality Workshop

The workshop builds upon the team’s recent research, which focuses on sexual regimes in liberal welfare regimes (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States). That study includes a nationally representative Canadian survey of sexual behaviours and policy attitudes in parallel with an identical survey by collaborators in the United States as well as qualitative interviews with Canadian respondents. The workshop is the first step in expanding this research program to a wider range of countries beyond North America. Comparisons with greater variation across cases are essential for refining and testing the boundaries of theoretical and empirical insights and related policy implications.

The team will hold a two-day international, interdisciplinary research workshop to be hosted at McMaster University on October 18-19, 2018. This event will bring together potential collaborators who research sexuality and welfare regimes in a range of countries, including less mature welfare regimes in less developed economies. The research presentations will introduce cutting edge research on the gendered dimensions of welfare states or the regulation of sexuality. This will be the first workshop of its kind to bring together diverse actors and perspectives to discuss the connection between welfare state regimes and policies that govern sex and sexuality, lesbian and gay relationships, singlehood, and diversities of sexual expression.