Community Psychology
Fall 2010
Professor Jean Rhodes
UMass Boston
UNIT #2 EXAM STUDY GUIDE
INTRODUCTION. I have created this study guide to help you prepare for the Unit #1 Test. It is my opinion that, if you are familiar with everything in this guide, then there is a high likelihood you will do very well on the test. However, it is possible that 1) items on this list will NOT be on the test, and 2) content on the test will NOT be on this list. I therefore encourage you to review the and the lecture notes and the parts of textbook that overlap with the lectures in addition to using this guide.
Key Topics
Community Psychology Research
Positivist approaches to psych.
objectivity/value free neutrality,
understanding cause and effect,
hypothesis testing,
control of extraneous factors,
measurement as source of data,
generalizeable laws, laboratory
Alternatives to positivist
Deeper understanding of local and particular context rather than broad general laws
Grounded in setting, time, culture
no observer is value free
Proceed through collaboration
Guidelines for understanding cultural context
Create collaborative partnershipsUse accepted terms
Understand the diversity within a group or community
Consider qual. Methods
Avoid comparisons between cultural groups
Be willing to modify across cultures
Evaluation Strategies
Process and implementation evaluation
Outcome evaluation
Random assignment
Quaisi –experimental designs
Comparison group
Time series
Cost-benefit evaluation
Qualitative Research
Gather observations, words, pictures
An immersion process
Naturalistic
No variable manipulation
Holistic
Subjectivity of researcher and participants are legit
More concerned with depth than breadth
Inductive
Moving from specific to general
Qualitative Research
Grounded theory
Discovery oriented
Construct theory from data
Case Studies
Narrative Inquiry
Rappaport—stories and narratives
Dominant culture narratives provide context for stories
Ethnographic
Discourse analysis
Deconstructs dominant discourses
PAR
Mixed Methods
What’s the “right” method
The lived experiences of oppressed people are often outside what traditional methods can capture
But other methods are also subject to bias--white, middle-class more likely to volutneer for qual studies
The right method depends on research Question
Your method should fit your research question, not the other way around
Depends on values and beliefs Guidelines for understanding cultural context
Create collaborative partnerships
Use accepted terms
Understand the diversity within a group or community
Consider qual. Methods
Avoid comparisons between cultural groups
Be willing to modify across cultures
Principles of Community Research
Stimulated by community needs
Involves and exchanges of resources
Is a tool for social action
Is ethically imperative
Yields products useful to the community
Culture, Immigration,
and Adaptation
Culture:The behavior, patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation
What is Culture?
Two important dimensions of culture are socioeconomic status and ethnicity.
Socioeconomic status (SES): A grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and economic characteristics
Ethnicity: A dimension of culture based on cultural heritage, nationality, race, religion, and language
Immigration
High rates of immigration
Growth in proportion of ethnic minorities
Stressors
Language barriers
Dislocation
Separation from support network
Preserve identity
SES
Basic Definitions
Immigrants: People who have made a relativley free choice to relocate from one country, region or area, to another. Combination of push and pull
Refugees: Those who are forced to move, survival is motivation
Immigrants
Over 80 percent arrive from Latin America, Asia, and the Afro-Caribbean basin
Length of residence in the United States is associated with declining academic achievement and aspirations
Immigration to the United States 1820-2000
1820-1880 Main Sources of Immigration
In this period of time almost 10.2 million immigrants came to the United States
The main countries the immigrants came from were in Northern and Western Europe
Models of Cultural Adaptation
Assimilation: Denounce culture of origin, moves into dominant
Integration: Maintains culture of origin, participate in dominant culture
Separation: Maintains culture of origin, minimal contact with dominant culture
Marginalization: Little interest in culture of origin or dominant culture
Features of relocation
Bidirectional influence
Severing ties, loss of networks
Acculturation
Gender, Power, and Community Psychology
Feminism and CP: Second wave of feminism coincided with CP
Commonalities
Similar social critiques of victim blaming ideology
Pushed beyond invidividual, adjustment-oriented solutions
Called for new paradigms beyond the fragmentation and mystification of traditional disciplines
Developed similar change models and strategies
Social policy
Advocacy empowerment and demystification of experts
Consciousness raising
Yet…
CP dominated by men
Feminists have struggled to have ‘women’s issues” acknowledged
Central principles
Ecology
Both argue for alternatives to reductionist approaches that decontextualize the problem
Models that address the structural inequalities (PMS)
The role of families (double burden for women)
Prevention
Programs often only remove potential hazard (cliff) but do nothing to address the underlying problem (e.g., Depression prevention must address oppression and abuse, rape prevention is more than self-defense)
Women’s empowerment and education are the keys to real change
Key terms
Feminism-advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of equality of the sexes
Gender-social vs. biological role
Misogyny-hatred and/or hostility toward all women
Sexism-beliefs, attitudes, practices or institutions in which distinctions between people’s intrinsic worth are made on the basis of sex/gender
Hegemony-the assumption of power or control by a ruling class or dominant group