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