About the International and Cross-Cultural Psychology Section

Section History

Beginning in the late 1960 there was some recognition of “Special Interest Groups” within the Canadian Psychological Association. According to John Berry, the first of these was one that he organised on Environmental psychology. As time progressed, well into the late 1970s this group, and the field of environmental psychology moved towards the examination of specific factors in the physical environment while interest in the cultural environment was neglected. In the fall of 1980, following a meting of CPA in Vancouver, Geraldine Schwartz became the first chair of this section on International / Cross-Cultural psychology. At that time the section was described as “CPA-Interest group on International Cross-Cultural Psychology” and shortly afterwards all sections were numbered and Section 10 was our designation. In the late 1990s the numbering system was dropped for the current system that includes only the name (with Punctuation added).

The Founding Members of the section were: Geraldine Schwartz (Chair), Hank Janzen, Francois Desrosiers, John Berry, Don McEachern, Tim Hogan, Giles Aussant, George Small, Michel Pierre Janisse, Ada Dihllon, RS MacArthur, Jack Sikand, Bruce Bain, Mark Sandilands, John Fentness.

Mandate

Beginning in 1980 the Section was formed under the Applied Division of CPA. Current CPA  by-Laws on Sections are found here, while our own mandate began with an initial agenda for the 1981 conference considering the following activities:

1) Presentation of Current Cross-Cultural Research , in symposia or seminars by Canadian Psychologists currently engaged in these activities
2) Conversation hour led by some prominent people in the field
3) Business-Membership meeting
4) Social Hour in conjunction with the International Council of Psychologists, the International Association of Cross-Cultural & the Inter-American Psychology Association
5) It was also suggested that this interest group (Section) might be able to host colleagues from abroad who visit our country.

Currently we still take an active role in the annual convention where we typically have a full agenda across the three days. These include Symposia, poster presentations, conversation hours, workshops and Keynote Speeches.

We currently have several members on the International Relations Committee, a CPA committee that addresses the association’s activities and contacts with international organisations, scholars and practitioners.

We have a section e-mail list to  foster communication among our members along with this website that has been designed to provide a hub of information and contact for our members and others who may be interested in our activities.