Sharing Strengths and Struggles in the Classroom and Beyond: Results from the Teaching Community Psychology Survey

Research on the state of community psychology (CP) in undergraduate education is scarce. This lack of understanding within the discipline hinders the ability to learn from CP educators’ experiences and disseminate effective practices. To begin to address this gap, the current study distributed a survey to CP educators located within the United States, exploring the following questions: 1) what are the demographics, locations, and roles CP-related educators occupy, 2) what are the biggest challenges educators encounter in and outside of the classroom when teaching CP-related content, and 3) what additional resources/supports do educators need from both their institution and the larger professional field to deliver high quality CP educational experiences. Responses from participants (N=44) highlight diversity in educators’ positions and geographic locations, as well as the prominence of a CP focus across departments. Applying an ecological framework, findings indicate that educators encounter multiple systemic challenges while teaching CP-related content at the departmental, institutional, and local community levels. At a national scale, the political climate regarding public education also contributes to instructional barriers. Assessment of resources regarding needed support systems and action within the field are provided. Lastly, we stress the value of future research concerning faculty teaching undergraduate CP courses

Sharing Strengths and Struggles in the Classroom and Beyond: Results from the Teaching Community Psychology Survey

Research on the state of community psychology (CP) in undergraduate education is scarce. This lack of understanding within the discipline hinders the ability to learn from CP educators’ experiences and disseminate effective practices. To begin to address this gap, the current study distributed a survey to CP educators located within the United States, exploring the following questions: 1) what are the demographics, locations, and roles CP-related educators occupy, 2) what are the biggest challenges educators encounter in and outside of the classroom when teaching CP-related content, and 3) what additional resources/supports do educators need from both their institution and the larger professional field to deliver high quality CP educational experiences. Responses from participants (N=44) highlight diversity in educators’ positions and geographic locations, as well as the prominence of a CP focus across departments. Applying an ecological framework, findings indicate that educators encounter multiple systemic challenges while teaching CP-related content at the departmental, institutional, and local community levels. At a national scale, the political climate regarding public education also contributes to instructional barriers. Assessment of resources regarding needed support systems and action within the field are provided. Lastly, we stress the value of future research concerning faculty teaching undergraduate CP courses

Thinking Through our Processes: How the UCSC Community Psychology Research & Action Team Strives to Embody Ethical, Critically Reflexive Anti-racist Feminist Praxis

Co-written by eight people, this paper describes how the UCSC Community Psychology Research and Action Team (CPRAT) organizes itself in weekly group meetings and how this structure is an attempt to embody an ethical, critically reflexive anti-racist feminist praxis. First, we outline the community psychology core competency of an ethical, reflective practice (Dalton & Wolfe, 2012). We offer a friendly amendment to consider an ethical, critically reflexive anti-racist feminist praxis. Second, we discuss how we organize CPRAT meetings to uphold these ideas. We describe our current structure, which includes personal and project check-ins, rotating facilitation, and attention to broader professional development issues. Third, we provide two examples to illustrate our process: (a) why talking about poop matters in addressing imposter syndrome and (b) getting our team on the same page regarding a research site. We end the paper with a description of a “rough edge,” or an area for growth in our praxis

Children as activist artists: Constructing citizenship through social justice arts-based participatory action research

This dissertation investigates the creation of social justice art as a context for children's critical citizenship education and community empowerment. Drawing on data from an arts-based, after-school, youth participatory action research program with 4th and 5th grade low-income Latina/o children, this ethnographic case study investigates the creation process of a school mural depicting the histories, strengths, and struggles of community members. Data for this research include ethnographic fieldnotes, semi-structured participant interviews with children and adults, and archival data (e.g., curriculum, participant evaluations, art projects). Results highlight how participation in creating social justice-oriented art can facilitate membership, participation, collective solidarity and creativity in participants as they work to construct alternative narratives within their school community. A particular focus is on the institutional and ideological tensions that arose in response to children's participation in social justice art. Finally, the study emphasizes the importance of an intersectional approach to children's citizenship education, as well as the constructive function of tension within social justice oriented change efforts

Towards a Liberatory Ethics of Care Framework for Organizing Social Change

Community psychology originated as a discipline designed to reduce societal inequities and promote social justice. The field’s development, however, coincides with the proliferation of neoliberal policies and ideology that run counter to many of the aims of community psychology. In light of the contemporary socio-political landscape, this paper advances a liberatory ethics of care model as a path forward for community psychologists interested in societal transformation. We illustrate liberatory care as a guide for social change via case studies of two different groups involved in transformation-oriented projects to improve the well-being of their communities (i.e., Latinx youth in the United States involved in an activist art project and women in rural Nicaragua involved in feminist organizing). We specifically illustrate that an ethics of care framework both guides the actions of these groups, and offers an alternative focus for community psychologists interested in promoting transformation towards more healthful and just societies. We aim to contribute to efforts to promote justice-oriented change by explicating the role of care-oriented communal values in promoting liberatory practices

“They think kids are stupid”: yPAR and confrontations with institutionalized power as contexts for children’s identity work

Through bringing together literature on identity work, participatory action research, and critical literacy, the current study examines the identity work of low-income and working class youth of color (predominantly Latinx) as they confronted obstacles in their efforts to enact school change. Within a youth participatory action research (yPAR) program, youth created a mural to represent community members’ stories about times they felt they did or did not have the power to change something in their community. Research questions were: (1) How might yPAR serve as a context for children’s identity work? And (2), how do children in a yPAR program respond to obstacles in their efforts to perform identities as social change agents? Results examine the process of mural symbol creation and are based on analyses of ethnographic field notes from 13 program meetings. Through encounters, youth engage with power as it relates to their social identities in the following: yPAR serves as a context for children’s identity work by providing them a space where they can co-construct critical engagement, and read identity and power in text and images. They respond to obstacles by critically engaging with conflict, and performing change agent identities