How does what you learned from the field of community psychology affect your ability to address social justice issues?
Based on the lecture, we learned about the disparity between the rich and the poor, a domain that is associated with marginalization and stigmatization. Serrano-Garcia (51) illustrates a dilemma she encountered when she had to decide whether to sit by the Black’s group side or the White’s group side despite her strong desire to bridge this social gap. Thus, integrating insight from other fields, for example, education, economics, and health in solving social justice issues is important. This will help to minimize the disparity that exists between these fields and the criminal justice system by implementing effective interventions as suggested in “PSY 354 The Future of Community Psychology “.
Another aspect that may affect my ability to address social issues is lack of adequate knowledge about a particular community. Often, we rely on other people’s perceptions and attitudes about certain things and people instead of making an effort to learn about these beings ourselves. Hence, without adequate knowledge, it becomes difficult to establish the social change that we vehemently seek to gain. Therefore, I challenge each and every one of us to adopt mechanisms based on Serrano-Garcia’s (52-54) experiences as she strived to change the political, economic, and social domains in her Puerto Rican native homeland.
What might you do differently now than you would have done had you not become familiar with community psychology?
I have learned how contacts shape individual behavior, especially, ecological and social perspectives. Hence, you will support me when I point out that liaising with these contacts is important to address community issues. These contacts help us to gain insight about the values, normative structures, and principles that guide individual and communal behavior. These contacts can be very helpful in establishing a long-term relationship with a community, which will be a gateway towards learning more about the community. Looking at the interaction between an individual and the environment, we have learned about the need to understand communities and associated social push and pull factors that influence behavior.
Like most of you, I, too, have gained a different perspective on how to promote social change as emphasized in our lecture. We should not be too hasty in judging individuals for their problems and unacceptable behavior. Rather, we should understand the ecological framework that defines them. Hence, in order to understand issues, I prefer adopting the role of a naïve observer. This way, I can capture that element which most of you might overlook; it may be a practice, moral value, or norm.
I would augment my observations with insight from other sources at both local and international level for the purpose of making comparisons. Thereby, take lead in implementing novel strategies that ensure community needs are addressed; these are the facets that largely trigger the occurrence of community problems (Serrano-Garcia 55-57).
Is community psychology consistent with what you have learned about psychology?
In her pursuit of social change, Serrano Garcia (50-51) delineates the variations that exist between psychology and community psychology. Apparently, prior to settling down to community psychology, she could not align her career objectives with the traditional fringes of psychology aimed at counseling, trying to learn group dynamics, and indulgement in complex research designs and statistical analysis. Serrano-Garcia (51) reveals to us the uniqueness of community psychology that transcends the endpoint, noted in “PSY 354 The Future of Community Psychology”, associated with psychology.
Works Cited
“PSY 354 The Future of Community Psychology.” Wrap-up Lecture. Web.
Serrano-Garcia, Irma. “To Be Different: The Challenege of Social-Community Psychology.” Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community 35.1 (2008): 45-59. Print.