Should community psychology remain a small and distinctive field of study or continue to expand its outreach to students, academics and practitioners outside the field of psychology?

Should community psychology remain a small and distinctive field of study or continue to expand its outreach to students, academics and practitioners outside the field of psychology?
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Should community psychology remain a small and distinctive field of study or continue to expand its outreach to students, academics and practitioners outside the field of psychology?
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Should community psychology remain a small and distinctive field of study or continue to expand its outreach to students, academics and practitioners outside the field of psychology?
Prompt: In his presidential address to the members of the Community Psychology section of the American Psychological Association (APA), Paul Toro poses the question “Should community psychology remain a small and distinctive field of study or continue to expand its outreach to students, academics and practitioners outside the field of psychology?” In your response, discuss two values or principles that distinguish community psychology from other fields such as social work, sociology, and public health, and explain why these distinctive values/principles make it challenging to create a “big tent.” Be sure to provide a foundation for your explanation by citing a quote by Toro.

C 2005) American Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 35, Nos. 1/2, March 2005 ( DOI: 10.1007/s10464-005-1883-y 2004 Division 27 Presidential Address Community Psychology: Where Do We Go from Here? Paul A. Toro1 Following a developmental analogy, community psychology may be experiencing a “mid-life crisis” as it enters “middle age.” The field needs to determine where to go from here. This paper argues that the field should attempt to expand. Expansion can best be accomplished by celebrating the diversity of orientations within the field (e.g., those emphasizing prevention, empowerment, and the ecological perspective) and the wide range of human problems of interest to community psychologists. To promote expansion of the field, community psychologists need to seek out relationships with diverse groups, such as the international community, those working in applied settings, ethnic minorities, and students and early-career professionals. KEY WORDS: community psychology; diversity; international. The title of this paper may be familiar. It was borrowed from the title of a book written by a very famous man: Martin Luther King, Jr. In the few years prior to publishing his 1967 book entitled Where do we go from here: Chaos or community, Dr. King experienced a string of monumental achievements. His “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and his meeting with President Kennedy in 1963 established him as a major, if not the major, leader of the Civil Rights Movement. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. And, in 1965, he witnessed the signing of the Voting Rights Act into law by President Lyndon Johnson. In the year after his book appeared and just eight months after one of his last major public addresses (which occurred at the 1967 Convention of the American Psychological Association; APA), Dr. King was assassinated, bringing his great career to an untimely end. So, why the “history lesson?” What does community psychology have to do with Dr. King, his book, and the Civil Rights Movement? Let me now answer these questions. It is widely known that community psychology was “born” in the midst of all the events just described. The first use of the terms “community psychology” is attributed to the Boston Conference on the Education of Psychologists for Community Mental Health (Bennett et al., 1966), which was held in April 1965 near Boston in Swampscott, Massachusetts, just three months before the signing of the Voting Rights Act. It has often been noted that the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and other sociopolitical events of the 1960s provided the “breeding ground” for the development of community psychology (Dalton, Elias, & Wandersman, 2001; Kelly, 2003; Levine & Perkins, 1997; Walsh, 1987). The values that pervade our field clearly are consonant with those of the 1960s. Without these events, would community psychology have developed in its present form, if at all? Probably not, I suspect. Furthermore, many of the first community psychologists supported the goals of the Civil Rights Movement and many current community psychologists still support the long-term goals Dr. King had for society. Those goals, in addition to equal rights and opportunities for all racial and ethnic groups, included fully accessible education, health care, and social services for all citizens. So, Dr. King and community psychology have promoted some similar directions for social change. 1 To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, 71 West Warren Ave., Detroit, Michigan 48202; e-mail: paul.toro@wayne.edu. 9 C 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 0091-0562/05/0300-0009/0 10 But, there is an even more important connection between Dr. King’s book and this paper: both question the future direction of a movement. In his book, Dr. King, while acknowledging the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, was very concerned about the future of the Civil Rights struggle. He perceived a growing complacency among both whites and blacks, following on the heels of the many recent and dramatic successes in social policy and legislation that ended blatant segregation in our nation. He continued to see terrible inequities between black and white Americans, inequities that still largely remain with us nearly 40 years later. For example, the poverty rate for African–Americans (23%) remains more than double the rate for whites (10%; US Census Bureau, 2004). In his book, Dr. King (1967) exhorted his brothers, both black and white, to continue the struggle. He described the actions of the Civil Rights Movement prior to 1967 as “substantially improvised and spontaneous” (p. 137) and encouraged the development of a more organized and strategic approach for the Movement in the future. Again, I see parallels to our field of community psychology. I think that we may want to consider becoming more organized and strategic too, expanding our purview, even though we may not be able to fully agree on the precise direction for community psychology. While I have no wish to compare myself with a man as great as Dr. King nor to compare community psychology with the much more significant Civil Rights Movement, still I am having some feelings about our field that are similar to those Dr. King felt about his Movement in 1967 when he wrote his book. In the remainder of this paper, I will take a broad historical look, discussing the achievements of community psychology since it began and emphasizing possible future directions for the field. The fast-approaching 40th anniversary of community psychology in the spring of 2005 prompted me to consider this topic for this paper. The 20th Anniversary spawned similar “soul-searching” in our field, including a special issue of the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) that reviewed the status and prospects of our field (Kelly, 1987). So, at 40 years, it would seem to be a very appropriate time in history to have a review of the successes of and future challenges for community psychology. In this review I will not be proposing any “earth-shaking” changes. Rather I will take a pragmatic look at who we, as community psychologists, have been, currently are, and might be. I will surely Toro present my own personal views on the successes and challenges of our field and so I welcome others’ reactions (see the accompanying paper by JozefowiczSimbeni, Israel, Braciszewski, and Hobden (2005) for a summary of the discussion that ensued after the author presented the ideas in this paper at his Presidential Address in 2004 and again after an address at the 2004 Midwest Ecological-Community Psychology Conference). A PERSONAL HISTORY, A HISTORY OF THE FIELD I will now provide a thumbnail sketch of the history of community psychology, with my own history woven in. I was 10 years old when the Swampscott Conference took place in 1965. Later, in college and then graduate school and beyond, I developed as a community psychologist during what many might consider the field’s heyday in the United States (US) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During this time period, community psychology’s ideas still seemed new and important given the political climate of the times, much of American psychology seemed interested (if not shocked) by our ideas, and we achieved our peak membership in the US (over 1,800 in APA’s Division 27 (Community Psychology) in 1983, the same year I completed my PhD; American Psychological Association, 2003). Later in the 1980s, community psychology in the US initiated its separation from APA. This separation came about for a number of reasons, including a desire to draw in more non-psychologists to the field, concerns about the growing “guild interests” in APA that increasingly emphasized clinical practice issues over all others, and a recognition that the term “psychology” no longer fit well what many community psychologists were doing. We changed our name to the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA), incorporated as an independent professional society, and held our first Biennial Conference on Community Research and Action in 1987 in South Carolina. Soon, in June 2005, SCRA will hold its 10th Biennial Conference in Champaign, Illinois. Consistent with this historic year, the title of the 10th Biennial Conference will be “40 Years Post-Swampscott: Community Psychology in Global Perspective.” In her introduction to the special issue of AJCP in honor of the 20th Anniversary of the Swampscott Conference, Rickel (1987) made an appropriate Where Do We Go from Here? analogy to developmental stages in reviewing the status of our field at the time. She suggested that community psychology, 20 years after its birth, had progressed through adolescence and was entering early adulthood. I would like to extend this analogy to suggest that the field after 40 years is, like me, now firmly in “middle age.” I will now review what we have accomplished in our early adulthood over our second 20 years since about 1985. The ideas of community psychology are now widely understood among many psychologists, even if those ideas are not fully embraced and celebrated. Prevention, once quite foreign terminology in psychology, is now widely used. For example, Martin Seligman (1998), a well-known clinical psychologist, adopted prevention and the promotion of positive well-being as key components in his 1998 APA presidential year. Complex, ecologically-informed intervention strategies are also now common (consider, for example, the popular multisystemic therapy for troubled youth; Henggeler, Schoenwald, & Pickrel, 1995). Attention to diversity and “cultural competence” are now widely accepted as necessary components in clinical training, most areas of human research in the social sciences, and even in medical practice and research. Even “empowerment” has become a popular “buzz word” in many human service and professional contexts. In terms of our organizational status, SCRA now has some financial security, perhaps for the first time in its history, mainly as a result of gaining control of AJCP from it original owner, Kluwer/Plenum, which is now providing SCRA with royalties from the sale of AJCP. But now I am wondering, consistent with the Eriksonian issues that crop up during middleage (Erikson, 1963), perhaps our field “wants more from life” and is concerned about its “long-term legacy.” I think that many of us wonder whether the field will endure. Maybe it might simply “fade into the sunset” over the coming decades, with its ideas “absorbed” into many other disciplines and sub-disciplines? So here is where the title of this paper comes in: Where do we go from here? Do we wish to expand our reach or remain “small” and on the “fringes” of both society and psychology? Are we content with other areas within and outside of psychology “coopting” our ideas? Which of the many “strands” in the field do we wish to emphasize, or do we wish to remain diverse, perhaps even to celebrate our own diversity in terms of our orientations, our work places, and the human problems we address? I think 11 that some critical discussion of such questions is in order as our field turns 40. STRATEGICALLY CHOSE “ONE STRAND” OR REMAIN A “BIG TENT?” Let me now take up what appears to be one of the recurring controversies in our field: Namely, should we attempt to emphasize one particular “strand” in community psychology (such as prevention, empowerment, diversity, an emphasis on social experimentation, or an ecological perspective) or should we remain a “big tent” under which many perspectives can co-exist and many people working in research, policy, and other settings can “find a home?” I am going to argue that we should remain a “big tent.” First, I assert that our field started out as a relatively “big tent” and has, in practice, always remained so. In fact, it could be argued that our “tent” has become bigger and bigger over the past four decades. Any look at our conference programs highlights the diversity of topics we address. The Biennial programs, in particular, are incredibly diverse. For example, content analyses of the last three Biennial Conferences identified 18 different general topic areas that were very well represented, with at least 12 different sessions reflecting each topic at each of the three Conferences (see Tandon, Mashburn, & Holditch, 2001; Woods & Wilson, 2003). These 18 topic areas run from program evaluation, to adjustment and coping, to violence, to social support, to HIV/AIDS, to legal issues (see Table I). Not only do we present diverse topics at our Conferences, but we consistently do so. I have been present for most of the addresses of our SCRA Presidents over the past 25 years, as well as most of the addresses by winners of the Distinguished Award for Theory and Research in Community Psychology. During this 25-year period, there have been a number of these addresses that have argued forcefully for a particular “strand” to become the guiding principle for our field. Cowen (1977) argued for prevention to become “front and center” in his Presidential address. Others supporting such an emphasis include Rickel (1986) in her Presidential address. Julian Rappaport in his Presidential address (1981) and again in his Distinguished Contribution address (1987), argued for an emphasis on empowerment rather than on prevention. SerranoGarcia (1994) also emphasized the need to empower the disenfranchised in her Presidential address. 12 Toro Table I. Numbers of Biennial Conference Sessions by General Topic Area Race and culture issues Program evaluation, outcomes, and assessments Prevention efforts and programs School issues and curricula Program development and community collaboration Individual adjustment, well being & coping Violence and crimes Methodology, measures, and implementation Empowerment, leadership, advocacy Social support, self help, mutual aid, and peers Sense of community and community building HIV/AIDS Family issues, divorce, and bereavement Professional training, students, service providers & workers Legal system, legal issues, and delinquency Mental illness, health, & treatment Health programs and medical treatments Drugs and alcohol 1999 2001 2003 43 60 78 59 124 80 60 47 70 58 51 47 55 60 104 46 46 65 29 64 42 34 47 59 51 31 56 35 28 46 42 27 51 20 22 22 22 21 29 31 22 47 12 20 31 19 31 18 15 62 32 12 14 24 Note. Adapted from Tandon et al. (2001) and Woods and Wilson (2003). Fairweather (1986) in his Distinguished Contribution address, exhorted us to work toward social innovation, evaluation, and dissemination. Trickett (1984), in his Presidential address, argued for an emphasis on an ecological perspective in our field, as did Kelly (1979) in his Distinguished Contribution address. While I have found all of these addresses interesting and provocative, I have often wondered whether they might be somewhat divisive, leading at least some in our field to feel that their favorite orientation is not fully appreciated. Sometimes community psychologists can get into acrimonious debates that may have the effect of “pushing away” our newest recruits. I have always admired community psychology for its interest in diversity, in terms of the topics of our research and the interventions we propose, and in terms of the range of people and ideas involved in the field. In what other field can you find people working on all the topics in Table I? Perhaps nowhere. Community psychologists have also moved increasingly into the full range of intervention domains that Beth Shinn (1987) exhorted us to enter in her address, also printed in the AJCP special issue commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Swampscott Conference. These domains include schools, work sites, religious organizations, voluntary associations, and government. Community psychologists can now be found in growing numbers working to conduct community research and action in all of these sites. Although other prominent community psychologists might disagree with me, I do not see any major contradictions between the many strands evident in our field. Rather, it is my position that the strands can be woven into a fine cloth that is more complete than any strand would be alone. While it can be difficult to encompass prevention, empowerment, diversity, social innovation, the ecological perspective, and our other strands all in the same project or activity, we can and often do incorporate at least several strands at one time. For example, in some of the current work of my own research group, we are beginning to design comprehensive interventions that could prevent youth “aging out” of foster care at age 18 from becoming homeless and experiencing other unpleasant outcomes during early adulthood. Here we are clearly weaving prevention, ecological, and social innovation strands, perhaps with a bit of empowerment included as well (because we hope to provide resources and support so that the youth can “take charge” of their lives as young adults now on their own). Another example of a project that has woven multiple strands is the work of a group of community psychologists who have been collaborating with Native Americans in Alaska to promote sobriety (Mohatt et al., 2004). This group is weaving diversity, empowerment, and prevention in their work. It is easy to find many other examples of such “weaving of strands” in projects in which community psychologists are involved. Maintaining and enhancing our diversity sends a message that a wide range of folks can work together, despite their differences. A diversity of opinions helps inform all of us on different approaches to solving society’s problems. Applying our work in so many different sites helps “spread the word” to other disciplines and to the public. Diversity helps maintain a vibrant field, keeping us from becoming narrow. Maintaining our diversity shows that we “practice what we preach.” To be sure, there are dangers in attempting to be diverse. For one, it is hard to “pull off.” Look Where Do We Go from Here? at all the ethnic and racial tensions in America. We Americans have never quite figured out how to live together in harmony and equality, as Dr. King hoped we someday would. With at least a half dozen major “strands,” it is hard to describe the field of community psychology to outsiders. And, each community psychologist probably provides a different “spin” on the definition of the field. The analogy to the many blind men all touching a different part of the elephant’s anatomy and coming up with vastly different definitions for “elephant” is apt. To some, our field might appear “soft” due to this lack of definitional clarity, our interest in policy, and our willingness to consider qualitative as well as quantitative methods. I am not terribly concerned with how we are seen by outsiders, including those in psychology. Continuing our important work and doing it on a larger scale is more important. If any group should be able to “pull off” celebrating the diversity in its own midst, it ought to be us community psychologists. I propose that community psychology actively embrace its own diverse strands in orientation, topical focus, and methodological approaches. Why not make the very diversity of what we do and how we approach social issues another “defining feature” of our field? Why not emphasize our diversity as a “recruitment tool?” REMAIN SMALL OR GROW? Let me now turn to an issue related to whether we should continue to develop under a “big tent:” Namely, should our field attempt expansion or remain “small?” I wish to assert that we are actually quite big now, although we also have lots of room to grow. As mentioned earlier, Division 27 hit its peak membership of 1,800 members about two decades ago in 1983. Membership in SCRA (including APA members, non-APA members, and students) is now about 1,000. A full 26% of our current membership is comprised of non-APA members with a terminal degree and another 36% are student members (Miller, 2004). So, a clear majority (62%) of our members are not the “traditional” doctoral-level APA folks who once dominated Division 27. Although the data are not available from the early 1980s, I believe that these current percentages are all much larger than they were two decades ago. While the overall SCRA membership may now seem smaller than it was two decades ago, worldwide membership in community psychology organizations has grown substantially, 13 with approximately 200 members currently in Australia and New Zealand, 100 in Canada, 250 in Europe, 400 in Latin America, and 400 in Japan. There are also growing numbers of community psychologists elsewhere in Asia and in Africa. Back in 1983, community psychology outside the US and Canada was in its infancy, with the first non-NorthAmerican organization established in Australia in that very year (Fisher, Thomas, Bishop, & Gridley, 2004). In 1983, such structures were many years away from being established elsewhere. Adding the current 1,350 international members, from across the five regions just mentioned, to the 1,000 now in SCRA, paints a much rosier picture of membership in community psychology organizations: Considered globally as a loose confederation of like-minded organizations, community psychology is now larger than ever, with well over 2,000 total members, which is clearly more than we had in 1983.2 As another indication of the vibrancy of community psychology outside of the US, regular (annual or biennial) conferences have now become well-established in Australia/New Zealand, Europe, Japan, and Latin America. Note that SCRA remains one of the most “diverse” divisions within APA, with 23% of our APA members identifying as an ethnic minority (as compared with less than 6% for APA overall; American Psychological Association, 2002). Our non-APA members and students probably show even more diversity than our APA members. All these membership data suggest some possible directions for expansion of our field. I advocate expansion over remaining “small and pure.” I believe that community psychology has much to offer society and that there is plenty more room in our “tent.” I will now review some possible directions for organizational and membership expansion. Going International One direction for expansion involves “going international,” even more than we already have. Those organizing the upcoming 2005 Biennial Conference perhaps recognized that the field has already been 2 There are relatively few people who belong to more than one of the “national/regional” organizations of community psychologists. The largest overlap is likely between SCRA and the various other organizations, with a total of about 70 SCRA members currently living outside the US (and likely belonging to an organization in their own nations; see Miller, 2004). 14 moving in “international” directions when they gave the title “Community Psychology in Global Perspective” to their Conference. I might recommend developing nations as a particular “frontier” for the development of community psychology. Certainly, with their numerous pressing social problems, such nations have a great need for community psychology. While a few community psychologists have a history of activity in such nations, especially in Latin America, we could “reach out” much more. Formal and informal international exchanges between community psychologists could help our field to grow, while also bringing even greater diversity of ideas and approaches to the field. Growth in our field outside the US would also seem particularly promising, as community psychology’s values more closely dovetail with national values elsewhere. Many, if not most, other nations (both developed and developing) have more “liberal-leaning” political landscapes than we have in the US. In encouraging growth in nations outside of the US, it is important that we Americans very carefully avoid pursuing activities that have even the slightest hint of “imperialism.” I have personally been quite active in engaging community psychologists outside of the US over the past few decades, especially in Europe and Asia (e.g., Toro, 2004a, 2004b; Toro et al., 2004). In my interactions with such community psychologists, I have sometimes encountered ambivalence with my involvements. My international colleagues can be wary of me, thinking that I might be “meddling” or somehow operating to “Americanize” their unique brand of community psychology. They are well aware of the American domination of the world economy, world politics, pop culture, academic research, etc. I believe that they should be wary of us and we should be sensitive to their justifiable wariness. Keep in mind that the current reality is that American community psychology dominates the global face of the field, just as America dominates so many other aspects of life globally. While I do not believe that this domination was in any way “planned” by American community psychologists, it nonetheless exists, due to the fact that the field started in America first, due to the overwhelmingly large number of organized community psychologists in North America (far more than any other single region of the world), and due to the wealth of resources available in America to support academics and other community psychologists (e.g., grant money, abundant universities, powerful publishing houses). Maybe this American domination Toro might diminish in the future if current membership growth outside the US continues. I, for one, would welcome a shift in the “balance of power” in our field between the US and elsewhere in the world. Perhaps, when such balance is one day achieved, a truly “international organization” of community psychologists might emerge? As one “baby step” in this direction, plans are now developing to hold the first “truly international” conference on community psychology in Puerto Rico in June 2006 (Jiminez & Ortiz-Torres, 2003). Looking Outside of Academic Psychology Another promising direction for expansion of our field involves looking outside of the traditional source of our members, i.e., academic psychology. I believe that there are many potential members outside of academia, especially if SCRA and the community psychology organizations outside the US can provide even more niches for those working in applied settings. The Community Practitioner, a new independent section of The Community Psychologist, a number of recent special issues of AJCP, and other publication outlets represent one approach for creating such niches. We need to continue dialogue with our applied colleagues to identify more niches in the future. Despite the proliferation of professional organizations in recent years, which makes for greater competition for new members, I still believe that SCRA and its “cousins” outside of North America can draw more members from fields such as social work, sociology, anthropology, public health, communications, economics, and law. As with “going international” and seeking new members in applied settings, such recruitment not only can enhance our numbers and “clout,” but can also enhance the size of our “tent” even more. As an example, in my own work recently, I have had the opportunity to work with two active junior faculty in social work at my university (see Heinze, Toro, Jozefowicz-Simbeni, Tompsett, & Fowler, 2004; Israel, Toro, Jozefowicz-Simbeni, & Norwood, 2003). As a result of this collaboration, my students, staff, and I have developed a much richer understanding of the value of qualitative methods and have begun to use them more extensively in our research on homelessness and poverty. I have seen many such collaborations among other community psychologists I know. We should all strive for more such collaborations. Where Do We Go from Here? Students and Early-Career Professionals Many other divisions envy SCRA’s high level of student participation. I do not believe any other division has two student representatives with full voting privileges on its Executive Committee (only a few of the other 50 divisions even have one representative). While we should continue to maintain or, even better, enhance our student membership, I think we need to pay even greater attention to “converting” our student members to regular SCRA members. Our new web site, which is being completely redesigned and improved, should help to draw in more early-career professionals. Robin Miller, our current Membership Chair, has been brain-storming other ways to do this. She and our incoming Membership Chair, Bianca Guzman, are now preparing to implement some of these strategies. An Ethnically Diverse Membership As someone with some Native American heritage (Mohawk tribe) and one who is fully committed to celebrating diversity, I have always advocated that we seek a diverse membership. SCRA’s already relatively high level of minority participation and our values that promote even more such participation, should continue to be a firm draw. We might especially look to the many recent immigrants from Asia and Latin America who are growing rapidly in the general population but much more slowly in the population of community psychologists. The bigger our “tent,” the more likely we are to draw such newcomers. We in SCRA need to continue to think of ways to attract all types of newcomers. Our “cousin” organizations outside the US may wish to consider doing the same. Some, in fact, have been doing a great job already in this regard. I think, in particular, of our colleagues in New Zealand who can boast that nearly half of their incoming graduate students in community psychology in recent years are of aboriginal (Maori) descent (Fisher et al., 2004). CONCLUSION I wish to end on an optimistic note. I wish to encourage community psychology to consider positive global growth rather than anticipating a slow decline and ultimate demise of our field. I think we can accomplish growth and that such growth can lead 15 us into more active roles in modern society (e.g., though direct attempts to influence policy). I think we can accomplish growth by “thinking globally” as we expand. Expansion need not be seen as “colonialism.” Rather, it can be a collaborative endeavor among all community psychologists, and like-minded folks who are not community psychologists, throughout the world. Let us celebrate our diversity as we grow. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper is based on the author’s Presidential Address, Society for Community Research and Action, Division 27 (Community Psychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA). This Address was given at the Annual Convention of the APA on July 31, 2004, in Honolulu, Hawaii. I w