National Council on Family Relations
Focus on Implications of COVID19 Pandemic on Families in The Middle East & North Africa
Like other parts of the world, the novel coronavirus pandemic has become the largest near-term challenge facing the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), a region already struggling with the effects of a decade of uprisings, failed or difficult political transitions, state collapses, civil war and international conflict. The COVID-19 pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on families across the MENA region with far- reaching social consequences. For the moment, we know very little about the impact of COVID-19 on families in the region. Evidence on the effects of social policy responses and coping strategies is equally meagre. Given the lack of practice-based, policy-based, and research-based evidence in the MENA region about these important issues, this special section aims to present papers relevant for understanding the impacts of coronavirus pandemic on families in order to help social scientists better address emerging challenges for contemporary families.
As part of the Family Relations’ call for COVID-19 related special section manuscripts, we are seeking contributions to these special sections that are related to Implications of COVID19 Pandemic on Families in the Middle East & North Africa. We seek research covering a broad range of themes related to family relations, parenting, family interactions, family violence, family wellbeing, and family policy responses. The themes mentioned here do not exhaust the myriad ways that pandemics affect development and sustainability outcomes. We view them as indicators of families need far greater attention in contemporary thinking about public policy.
Submission Types and Procedures Submissions are accepted in the four manuscript formats for Family Relations [https://www.ncfr.org/fr/submit-fr/submission-guidelines]:
• Original articles
• Formats facilitating dissemination of analyses of preliminary data or cases and viewpoints related to COVID-19 issues
o Emerging Ideas [facilitating dissemination of analyses of preliminary data or cases]
o Translating Discovery Science
o Lessons from the Field
All submissions should be based on primary or secondary evidence and be situated in the relevant literature. Manuscript will be sent out for external review. We expect to provide initial review decisions within 6 weeks of submission. We encourage submissions that are genuinely interdisciplinary that draw on research from more than one discipline and will be of value to researchers from more than one discipline. This call for papers intends to collect empirical and theoretical studies on key issues related to the latest coronavirus outbreak.
Timeline:
Notification on the acceptability of abstract: August 15, 2020
Submission deadline for full manuscripts: October 1, 2020
Final submission of revised texts: December 1, 2020
Abstracts should be emailed to the Guest Editor: Dr. Anis Ben Brik (abrik@hbku.edu.qa). Manuscript Submissions to Family Relations will be uploaded at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/fr