9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY Challenges, Controversies and Emerging Consensus Jim Orford School of Psychology The University of Birmingham, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd iii 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY i 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 ii 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY Challenges, Controversies and Emerging Consensus Jim Orford School of Psychology The University of Birmingham, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd iii 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 Copyright C 2008 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, England Telephone (+44) 1243 779777 Email (for orders and customer service enquiries): [email protected] Visit our Home Page on www.wiley.com All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, England, or emailed to [email protected], or faxed to (+44) 1243 770620. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The Publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Other Wiley Editorial Offices John Wiley & Sons Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA Jossey-Bass, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741, USA Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, Boschstr. 12, D-69469 Weinheim, Germany John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd, 42 McDougall Street, Milton, Queensland 4064, Australia John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd, 2 Clementi Loop #02-01, Jin Xing Distripark, Singapore 129809 John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd, 6045 Freemont Blvd, Mississauga, ONT, L5R 4J3, Canada Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Orford, Jim. Community psychology : challenges, controversies, and emerging consensus / Jim Orford. p. ; cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-85593-5 (cloth : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-470-85594-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Community psychology. I. Title. (DNLM: 1. Community Psychiatry. 2. Minority Groups–psychology. 3. Psychology, Social. 4. Social Environment. 5. Socioeconomic Factors. WM 30.6 067c 2007) RA790.55.0738 2007 362.196 89 – dc 22 2007039320 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-470-85593-5 (hbk) 978-0-470-85594-2 (pbk) Typeset in 10/12pt Palatino by Aptara Inc., New Delhi, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire This book is printed on acid-free paper responsibly manufactured from sustainable forestry in which at least two trees are planted for each one used for paper production. iv 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 CONTENTS About the Author page ix Preface xi Acknowledgements xxv PART I THE BACKGROUND TO COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY AND WHAT IT STANDS FOR 1 1 Challenging Psychology Over its Neglect of the Social 3 The individualism of psychology 3 The new public health psychology 20 Critical psychology 28 2 Community Psychology’s Core Values: Empowerment, Liberation and Social Justice 35 Empowerment 35 Social constructionism and its critics 47 Liberation psychology 50 Social justice as a core value 61 3 The Debate over Knowledge in Community Psychology: Dissatisfaction with existing research methods 67 Support for qualitative research 69 Participatory and action research 77 Negotiating the community psychology researcher’s role 86 What kind of science is community psychology? 93 PART II UNDERSTANDING INEQUALITY AND ITS EFFECTS ON HEALTH 99 4 Social Position and Inequalities in Health 101 The accumulation of evidence that health is related to social position 102 v 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 vi CONTENTS ‘Social class’: complexities and controversies 109 Inequality of income distribution 132 Psychosocial versus material explanations 134 5 Place and its Influence on Health and Well-being 147 Evidence for the influence of area on health and well-being 147 How neighbourhoods may (fail to) meet local health needs 159 6 Two Concepts for Understanding Inequalities by Position and Place 163 Social capital 163 Sense of community 181 PART III THE EXPERIENCE OF DISEMPOWERMENT: SEVEN EXAMPLES 203 7 Disempowerment by War, Immigration, Homelessness or Unemployment 205 Communities caught up in war and its consequences 205 Groups of people adjusting to a new country 213 Experiencing homelessness 218 The unemployed and the under-employed 226 8 Disempowered Because of Income, Gender, or Sexual Orientation 237 The poor and socially excluded 237 Women 246 Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people 256 PART IV COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY ACTION: FROM SUPPORT TO LIBERATION 265 9 Strengthening Social Support for Members of Disempowered Groups 267 Social support for young people 268 Social support interventions for women 275 Support for those with illness or disability or for their families 283 Responding to domestic violence 288 Support for LGBT groups 293 10 Social Action and Innovation 299 Moving to collective social action 299 Experimental social innovation and dissemination (ESID) 312 11 Empowering Communities 323 The theory of community coalitions 323 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 CONTENTS vii Collaborations, consortia and coalitions: examples of projects 331 Young people and collective action 339 12 Participation and Liberation 345 Participation in local action 345 Drawing on a diversity of world views 357 Projects to protect and sustain natural resources 361 Towards liberation for the poor and oppressed 367 Finale – Consensus and Challenge 377 References 383 Author Index 435 Subject Index 449 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 viii 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim Orford is Professor Emeritus and Head of the Alcohol, Drugs, Gambling and Addiction Research Group in the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham, England. He trained in clinical psychology in the 1960s and since then has worked in Manchester, London, Exeter and Birmingham in positions that have always straddled the National Health Service and the university sector. He is committed to public service provision. Through his writings and in other ways he has been an enthusiastic promoter of community psychology in the UK and in the rest of Europe. This is his second book on the subject. The first, Community Psychol- ogy: Theory and Practice, was published by Wiley in 1992. Other Wiley books include Psychological Problems: The Social Context (edited with Philip Feldman in 1980) and Excessive Appetites: A Psychological View of Addictions (second edition 2001). Among his other books, the most recent are Gambling and Problem Gambling in Britain (with K. Sproston, B. Erens, C. White and L. Mitchell, 2003) and Coping with Alcohol and Drug Problems: The Experiences of Family Members in Three Contrasting Cultures (with G. Natera, A. Copello, C. Atkinson, J. Mora, R. Velleman, I. Crundall, M. Tiburcio, L. Templeton and G. Walley, 2005). ix 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 x 9780470855935pre JWBK211-Orford November 28, 2007 15:33 Char Count= 0 PREFACE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY: EXPANDING, CHANGING, AND ALWAYS CONTROVERSIAL What is Community Psychology? As I was putting the finishing touches to this book, a working group of the Commu- nity Psychology Network in the UK was planning to submit to the British Psycho- logical Society a proposal for the formation of a Community Psychology Section – Britain has been slow to follow in the footsteps of a number of other countries which have had community psychology divisions or sections of their national psy- chological associations for some years. As part of the proposal we needed to define ‘community psychology’ for other members of the Society. Although it may not be the version finally submitted, our draft definition of the subject – shown in Figure P.1 – in my view does a good job of explaining in broad terms what we mean when we talk and write about community psychology. At the very heart of the subject is the need to see people – their feelings, thoughts, and actions – within a social context. It exhorts us, when thinking of people’s health, happiness and well-being, or when thinking about people’s distress and disorder, to ‘think context’. The context we should be thinking about does not stop at the immediate social environment of family or friendship or work group (the micro- level systems), but should extend to intermediate-level and macro-level contexts. In short, community psychology takes a contextual view of people and their psy- chology. Take the example of a homeless young person – homelessness will be the subject of part of Chapter 7.