Community Psychology Perspective Research Articles

Linking community participation and subjective well-being in Chinese residential communities: the mediating role of community identity and the moderating effect of loneliness

This study attempts to draw on self-determination theory and the community psychology perspective to elaborate on the mechanisms underlying the association between community participation and life satisfaction in urban residential communities. The present study examines the mediating role of community identity in the relationship between community participation and life satisfaction. Moreover, the current study investigated the moderating effect of loneliness on the mediation model. A total of 1,205 urban residents, ranging in age from 18 to 65 years, completed the Community Participation Scale, the Community Identity Scale, the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale for this study. The survey’s results suggest that community participation can be a positive predictor of community identity and life satisfaction. Moreover, the result of the mediation analysis demonstrates that the link between community participation and life satisfaction can be mediated by community identity. Furthermore, the moderated mediation model analysis indicates that loneliness moderated the link between community participation and community identity, as well as the link between community participation and life satisfaction. The mediating effect of community identity on the relationship between community participation and life satisfaction is stronger for residents with high levels of loneliness than for those with low levels of loneliness. These findings provide a comprehensive explanation for how community participation improves subjective well-being among urban residents in the context of a residential community.

History and Iatrogenic Effects of Conversion Therapy.

Research indicates that sexual orientation change efforts (SOCEs) are not effective and furthermore commonly lead to iatrogenic effects such as depression, anxiety, and even suicide. Negative attitudes toward homosexuality derive from most formal religions and are incarnated in medical and psychological theories that support and encourage SOCEs. Oppression of sexual minorities makes it unlikely that change requests by patients are voluntary. Recently there has been a dramatic change as the field moves from reparative to affirmative approaches. Here, we review the history of SOCEs, their consequences, current affirmative treatments, and future directions in the field as they pertain to the well-being of the queer community. From an institutional community psychology perspective, we argue that even if true conversion were possible, such efforts are unethical and should not be pursued even if requested. As is the case with all psychological/psychiatric interventions, the issue is not "can" but "ought." Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, Volume 20 is May 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Prominent discourses in South African education from the perspective of community psychology: Challenges and opportunities for youth liberation and well-being

Community psychology takes an explicitly political stance by identifying where power lies and how it is exercised in ways that maintain privilege and discrimination against particular groups. From this perspective, we consider the challenges facing school education in South Africa today. Education is positioned as an important site for the liberation and well-being of our country's majority. However, the state of education is marked by persistent inequalities. From a Foucauldian perspective, this paper presents a meta-synthesis of school education literature and identifies prominent discourses circulating around the country's basic education sector: the discourses of democracy, human rights, and good governance; rights; development; scarce skills; the crisis in education; and privatisation are discussed. We consider the role of these discourses in the wider social processes of legitimation and power in education, and subjective implications for youth. We note the various ways in which discourses responsibilise youth and surrounding stakeholders, and how others position them as resources for the neoliberal capitalist economy. We argue for the role of counter-discourses and a collective emancipatory perspective to advance transformational educational change and embrace opportunities in the future.

Child and adolescent well‐being: Potentials of intersectionality for community psychology

AbstractThis theoretical article aims to recognize the potential of intersectionality theory for understanding well‐being during childhood and adolescence, particularly from a community psychology perspective. Following the tenets of intersectionality, the article analyses and proposes three relevant dimensions for community psychologists, researchers and professionals interested in studying and intervening in children's and adolescents' well‐being. Those dimensions consider (1) adultism as an intersecting power axis fundamental for understanding well‐being, (2) the acknowledgment of diversity in well‐being conceptions and experiences as a critical issue and (3) the need for advancing studies that involve praxis and engagement in transformative changes for child and adolescent well‐being.

Betydningsfull gjennom musikk: En samfunnspsykologisk studie av musikkterapiens ringvirkninger i barnehagen

Aims and background: To explore music therapy as special education at preschool level. The research has been carried out in a context where the relevance of music therapy is understood in light of children’s rights to inclusion and participation. Method: In two focus group interviews, preschool teachers, special education teachers and assistants described their experiences and use of music therapy. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis. Findings: The results indicate that music therapy facilitates contact, communication, sense of community and joy. When children receive music therapy as special education, the music is used actively by children and adults throughout the week for learning and participating in the preschool community. Implications: Special education provided in the form of music therapy can reduce exclusion and create an environment that promotes learning, development and participation in a community. The findings are discussed from a community psychology perspective. We use the term mattering, consisting of feeling valued and adding value, to shed light on important processes in relationships and on the interaction between music therapy provision and ordinary preschool provision. Keywords: music therapy, children, community psychology, mattering, participation, special education

Volunteering in the community: Understanding personal experiences of South Asians in the United Kingdom.

Upstanding civic action is central to individual and community well-being, particularly when communities comprise rich and diverse membership. However, not all groups in society have the same opportunities and resources to volunteer. This is particularly true for South Asian people, who are often reported to be less likely to volunteer. Research into the experience and meanings that this ethnic group attributes to volunteering has been exceptionally scarce. Informed by a community psychology perspective, this qualitative study conducted nine semistructured interviews with British South Asians involved in formal volunteering activities. The aim was to explore their personal experiences and motivations regarding volunteering for their community of belonging. Results from reflexive thematic analysis were grouped under three themes. These were (1) volunteering cultivated individual well-being, (2) South Asians who volunteer often experience social injustice and marginalisation and (3) volunteering for South Asians is intrinsically tied to religious and cultural motivations. British South Asians faced personal and social obstacles in accessing fundamental health and social care in their communities of belonging. Religion, and community social capital were positive volunteering strategies for British South Asians. Positive impacts of well-being included becoming closer to faith and increased sense of meaning/purpose and recognising of individual strengths. These findings offer valuable insights and recommendations for community organisations and governmental bodies to better promote volunteering for ethnic minorities. We suggest the adoption of cultural and religious sensitivity, along with strategies to remove barriers in access to opportunities and support for volunteering.

Italian Community Psychology in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Shared Feelings and Thoughts in the Storytelling of University Students.

This study investigated how young Italian people experienced the period of peak spread of COVID-19 in their country by probing their emotions, thoughts, events, and actions related to interpersonal and community bonds. This approach to the pandemic will highlight social dimensions that characterized contextual interactions from the specific perspective of Community Psychology. The aim was to investigate young people's experiences because they are the most fragile group due to their difficulty staying home and apart from their peers and because they are, at the same time, the most potentially dangerous people due to their urge to gather in groups. The research involved 568 university students, 475 females, and 93 males, with an average age of 21.82 years (SD = 4.836). The collected data were analyzed with the Grounded Theory Methodology, using the Atlas 8.0 software. From the textual data, representative codes were defined and grouped into 10 categories, which reflect the individuals' prosocial attitudes, behaviors, and values. These categories formed three macro-categories, called: “Collective Dimensions,” which includes Connectedness, Solidarity, Italian-ness, Social Problems, and Collective Mourning; “Prosocial Orientation,” which includes Trust and Hope; and “Collective Values,” which includes Values of Freedom, Respect of Social Rules, and Civic-Mindedness. All these macro-categories are indicative of the shared feelings experienced by Italians during the first time of the pandemic. Further practical implications of these results will be discussed, including a consideration of the risk of developing distress and improving well-being, as well as promoting preventive behaviors.

MENTAL HEALTH FROM THE LENS OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY: A QUALITATIVE VIEW

The concept of mental health is abstract in nature and is hence difcult to be understood. This led the present investigators to attempt to have a cognizance of mental health from community psychology perspective. Aqualitative research purview towards studying the concept by embracing a community-based participatory research paradigm was adopted for the purpose. The social-ecological model as well as the blended model were used to arrive at qualitative interviewing of community stakeholders like psychologists, psychiatrists, patients, public health professionals and qualitative researchers. Focus group discussions were conducted with the members of community advisory board (CAB) to arrive at a rich understanding of the concept. It was ensured that representatives of law, visual media, policy makers, religious leaders and other professionals were included in the sample. People suffering from mental illness (with insight), mental health professionals, and caregivers were also approached to seek their valuable opinion. Transcription and analysis of data followed to extract meaning of the rich information obtained. The study found less streamlined knowledge regarding mental health concept and allied issues. The ndings are important not only to provide clarity to the concept of mental health, but also to address the related stigma and taboos. They are important for mass awareness of citizens in the country and for improving the stay-quality of individuals by promoting their well-being in general.

Evaluation in the Real World: Decision Points and Rationales in Creating A Rigorous Study Designed to Convey Ecologically Valid Findings.

Rigorously evaluating community‐based interventions for multiply marginalized populations is fraught with challenges under the best of circumstances. This manuscript describes the methodology chosen to evaluate an innovative model designed to help survivors of intimate partner violence obtain safe and stable housing. We justify the choice of evaluation design from a community psychology perspective and detail why we believe the multi‐method, multi‐source design, that also focuses on social context, will maximize ecological validity and, therefore, propel the scale‐up of the intervention if it is found to be effective. Longitudinal data are being collected from program recipients over time, the advocates who worked with them, agency service records, and monthly documentation of agency resources on hand that can impact services provided. Special attention is focused on capturing contextual information that can impact program success. While randomized control trials are still too often heralded as “the gold standard” for measuring intervention effectiveness, we maintain that the current design, which was developed in partnership with key community stakeholders, holds more promise when evaluating many community‐based programs.

Family-based Intervention for Legal System-involved Girls: A Mixed Methods Evaluation.

The increased proportion of juvenile court-involved girls has spurred interest to implement and evaluate services to reduce girls' system involvement. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a family-based intervention by using a dominant sequential mixed methods evaluation approach. First, we examined quantitative data using a quasi-experimental design to determine whether the family-based intervention reduced recidivism among court-involved girls. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to construct statistically equivalent groups to compare one-year recidivism outcomes for girls who received the court-run family-based intervention (n=181) to a group of girls on probation who did not receive the intervention (n=803). Qualitative interviews (n=39) were conducted to contextualize the quantitative findings and highlighted the circumstances that family-focused interventions for court-involved girls. Girls who received the program had slightly lower recidivism rates following the intervention. The qualitative findings contextualized the quasi-experimental results by providing an explanation as to the girls' family circumstances and insights into the mechanisms of the intervention. Results highlighted the importance of family-focused interventions for juvenile justice-involved girls. These findings have practical and policy implications for the use interventions-beyond the individual level-with adjudicated girls and offer suggestions for ways to improve their effectiveness using a community psychology lens. In addition, this paper includes a discussion of evaluating of juvenile court programming from a community psychology perspective including strengths, challenges, and considerations for future work in this area.

Children’s well-being in the primary school: A capability approach and community psychology perspective

This qualitative research with UK primary school children reveals their own subjective perceptions of well-being. In an educational context, the development of a theoretical framework towards understanding well-being is provided by capturing the voices of children through creative and visual methods. The data enabled nine key themes to emerge which have been applied to the Capability Approach and Community Psychology. The flexible approach also provides a practical means for practitioners to further understand and support children in an educational context.

EL ROL DEL PSICÓLOGO COMUNITARIO DESDE UNA COMUNIDAD EN LA ARAUCANÍA: UNA EXPERIENCIA DE APRENDIZAJE-SERVICIO

Learning in the community context offers students new stimuli in the acquisition of knowledge, which in turn promotes the link between university and society. This experience is based on the Thesis Project for the International Diploma in Community Psychology: Methodologies for social action in health, education and organizations, at the Catholic University of Temuco (Chile), offering an ideal opportunity to study the real environment, in this case the community in Araucania, and propose alternatives from the perspective of Community Psychology (CP). The results of the experience show that the reality of the community space opens a range of elements that the CP must consider for its praxis and evidenced vertical practices, which allowed to generate reflections around the approach of the problem. As conclusions, the PC was observed as a facilitator of intangible resources.

Toward a psychotherapy science for all: Conducting ethical and socially just research.

Much has been written in recent years regarding the integration of social justice values with psychology and psychotherapy; however, the discourse surrounding social justice perspectives related to conducting psychotherapy research is scant. Psychotherapy researchers are beholden to various professional ethical standards, laws, and policies; however, adhering to these rules and guidelines may make research ethical, but not necessarily socially or politically just. In this article, the authors build on previous work from community, feminist, positive, and multicultural psychology perspectives as well as their own experiences as psychotherapy researchers, to propose a framework for approaching psychotherapy research from an ethical and socially just position. Examples from the authors' experiences conducting psychotherapy research with incarcerated individuals, community- and school-based research with youth, and research with sexual/gender minorities are provided to illustrate theoretical principles and provide practical recommendations. Barriers to implementing such a framework to psychotherapy research, as well as strategies to manage these challenges are also discussed. In addition, the authors propose a model that can be used to develop and evaluate the social justice process and content dimensions of a research study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychology perspectives on community vengeance as a terrorist motivator: a review

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of vengeance as a terrorist motivator.Design/methodology/approachThe paper takes a community psychological perspective to examine vengeance in a number of forms. First covering “blood vengeance”, it then examines vigilantism and death squads as functional examples of vengeful entities, as well as the morality of vengeance and the impact of propaganda on vengeance as a terrorist motivator. Finally, both group processes and individual factors relating to the promotion and use of vengeance in terrorism are covered.FindingsVengeance can be conceptualised in a number of ways: as a predisposing factor to individual involvement, a factor that contributes to keeping the movement “bound” together (but which can also negatively affect the group’s strategic logic), a factor in the escalation of violent activity through vigilantism, retribution and retaliation which can result in a perpetuation of a cycle of violence, and as a moral mandate that is ideologically rationalised and justified, with perceptions of righteousness and obligation inherent to it.Research limitations/implicationsThe presented research is limited by the scarcely available data.Practical implicationsEfforts should be made to defuse vengeful motivations by tapping into collective identities of communities and incorporating multicultural values.Social implicationsPolicy makers should be wary of scoring populist scores by ridiculing out-group/religious elements as that creates potential for vengeful terror attacks.Originality/valueThe paper offers insights by renewing the neglected perspective of vengeance in terrorism research.

Community Psychology Perspective on Ecological Issues: Based on Psychological Intervention

The purpose of the current literature review is to clarify the important role of community psychology regarding ecological issues and illustrated its critical function based on psychological intervention. The results of this investigation explained that community psychology as one of the essential fields of psychology, has substantial involvement on ecological issues and it can examine these issues based on psychological intervention. In truth, these ecological issues that some of them explained in this study (child maltreatment, drug addiction, school dropping out, and teen pregnancy) have been examined based on the psychological aspect for finding best solution way from the side of expert psychologists and counselors. Consequently, this research focused on teenagers that face with community issue via different ways, and should be considered by parents, schools, society, and government in every community and country; otherwise, it will appear any inconvenient behaviors and reactions amongst teenagers. 

Community Representations in Learning Communities

ABSTRACT This conceptual paper revisits a set of pivotal learning community notions filtered through sociological and community psychology perspectives to unravel representations of the community construct within learning contexts. A conceptual review of sociological and community psychology perspectives on the community construct is initially presented. These representations act as lens for a further integrative conceptual review of the community construct in pivotal learning community notions. This integrative conceptual review shows that although most learning communities share a basic set of community representations, some foundational differences are also observed. Our contribution aims to enhance readers’ understanding of how “community” is represented in learning communities, which in turn can inform any design decisions and facilitation strategies by learning community researchers and practitioners.

Long walk to semi-freedom: Towards a framework for psychological research on being out on bail

An important focus for psychological and other research on the criminal justice system concerns people who have been charged and are awaiting trial. However, most of this research has thus far focussed on remand detainees, who make up almost a third of the South African prison population. In this article we focus instead on those who are not in detention, but out on bail. Given the dearth of psychological research on bail we present a framework for researching the bail experience, incorporating both individual and community psychology perspectives. We identify five key elements in how individuals may experience being out on bail, namely, relief, uncertainty, identity issues, struggles related to belief in a just world, and being compelled to tell a "thin story". Each of these elements is associated with particular possibilities for future research. From a community psychological perspective, we identify two key characteristics of the "bail community", namely that it is firstly a 'community of disconnection' and secondly a "community of transience" - each of which, again, provides important research opportunities. It is our hope that this model will aid in directing and framing future research on the psychology of bail.

Classroom relationships, sense of community, perceptions of justice, and collective efficacy for students’ social well‐being

AbstractA review of literature suggests a lack of studies analyzing the correlates of school context to social well‐being (SWB). By integrating the perspective of community psychology and social cognition, this study uses structural equation model to examine the effect of classroom climate, classroom sense of community, collective efficacy, and justice beliefs on students SWB. The study involves 390 high school students (58.6% females) between the ages of 13 and 20 years. The results show that classroom relationships as indicator of classroom climate and sense of community are associated with collective efficacy. Furthermore, collective efficacy, sense of community, and relational and procedural justice correlate with SWB. We discuss the implications of this finding for the positive development of adolescents and school‐based intervention programs.

Sexual Intimacy, Mental Illness, and Homelessness.

The current article reviews the literature on sexuality among individuals with a severe mental illness (SMI) who have experienced homelessness, a topic that has received little attention in the research literature, particularly from a community psychology perspective. The review begins with a synthesis of the literature on SMI and sexuality, followed by a review of the available literature on SMI, homelessness, and sexuality. It concludes with an interpretation of the findings using community psychology values and principles. The findings highlight the importance of intimate relationships to recovery for many individuals with an SMI who have experienced homelessness. Policy implications for homeless shelters and housing interventions are discussed.

Re-Imagine

Re-Imagine