Community Action Groups Research Articles

Community Action Groups and City Governments: Perspectives from Ten American Cities, by Frank X. Steggert

Community Action Groups and City Governments: Perspectives from Ten American Cities, <i>by Frank X. Steggert</i>

Racism and Sexism: a False Analogy

Anyone who cares about getting rid of racism in Britain is accustomed to massive difficulties. The disastrous immigration policies of governments of both parties since 1962, the institutionalised racial discrimination built into public and private organisations, the tragedy of human potential lost and destroyed in our educational system, the insensitivity and ignorance of many people in the news industry, racism in entertainment and cartoons, public indifference and private malice, are all too bitterly familiar. But the anti-racist, as if he had not trouble enough with enemies, needs more and more protection from his friends. Government money for ‘community relations’ has recently become more plentiful, but practised hands are holding the purse-strings and know just how and when to draw them tight. Job opportunities brighten a little for specialised social workers, charged with containing the discontents of the young and black : their job opportunities are less than ever. Various groups on the Left are eager to help in the racial struggle, but usually on their own terms. And now we have Women’s Lib as well.‘Women’s Lib’ is a vague and disputed term; it is more usual to hear of ‘the women’s movement’ now in this country. This includes some formal organisations, some informal groups and some individuals, all in some way or another concerned with women’s rights. These groups and individuals vary in beliefs and in action. Some are old-established reforming organisations, some new community action groups, and so on; their work often overlaps, but there is a marked difference, all the same, between the new ideology of liberation and the old ideology of equal rights for women. The difference is in mood and style rather than in a set programme; the new mood and style can conveniently be called ‘anti-sexism’.

The role of cognitive process in social interaction.

This paper reports on a series of studies designed to investigate the hypothesis that the success of a social interaction is function of the compatibility among the participants in complexity or degree of differentiation of their cognitive structure. Patient-therapist cognitive compatibility is shown to predict the success of treatment outcome. Its role in the teacher-student relationship in mental health training is more complex: the teacher's cognitive structure appearing to be a primary variable. In community action groups, cognitive compatibility determines the nature and type of decisions or behaviors carried out by the group. The resarch emphasizes the need for increased familiarity with cognitive research among social psychiatrists.

Dilemmas of leadership in community mental health.

The community mental health administrator's functions and roles transcend that of the clinician. In some respects, he has to unlearn aspects of the posture and style he may have acquired as a clinician. This posture has been described by Whittington:28 As social planners, our impatience and rudeness do not endear us to others in community action groups. We have striving and obsessive personalities; our scorn for “born losers” often prevents the clarity of vision and unpretentious helpfulness which characterizes the good psychiatric nurse. Our role as king whose legitimacy is challenged makes us vulnerable to self-doubt, anxiety and paranoia. In working through the “anxiety and paranoia” attendant upon cognitive, identity and role shift, the administrator acquires a language, cognitive map, identity and role cluster that fit him for his task. While he may never forget what he has learned in psychiatric school, his leadership dilemmas are only resolved when he enacts the roles that are most appropriate to a given function at a given time in a given context. With an adequate, flexible role repertoire he can avoid the “role clinging” that can occur if he is unskilled or unpracticed in community entry, negotiation, planning and program promotion. If he knows his community, if he knows how, where and when, to move, how to negotiate and trade in the corridors of power, he will find growth-enabling solutions to his leadership dilemmas.