Community Psychology:
Past and Present
Marybeth Shinn
Vanderbilt University
Presentation at National Institute on
Teaching of Psychology (NITOP), January,
2012
Audiences
• Teachers who want to incorporate a class session on
community psychology into their courses
• Advisors of students who want to make a difference,
and aren’t sure how to prepare themselves
Outline
• Overview of community psychology
▫ Origins
▫ Current themes
• For teachers
▫ Community psychology in relationship to your fields
▫ Current research examples
• For advisors
▫ Overview of graduate training
▫ Council of Education Programs powerpoint on
educational options and careers
Origins
• Clinical psychology: focus on welfare, but not just
one individual at a time
• Public health: focus on prevention, populations
• Social psychology (Lewin): action research; reversing
the fundamental attribution error
• Developmental psychology (Bronfenbrenner): levels
of context from microsystem to macrosystem
Initial Themes
• Contexts of human welfare
• Synergy of research and action
• Social justice
Additional Current Themes
• Positive change, health, and empowerment at
individual and systemic levels
• Collaborative relationships with communities,
groups, organizations in directing change
• Multidisciplinary approach
Teaching community psychology
• Introductory exercise (for any class)
• Research exemplars relevant to
▫ Social psychology
▫ Developmental psychology
▫ Clinical/abnormal psychology
▫ Materials in packet include teaching resources and a
lecture outline by Jean Hill (particularly suitable for intro or
health psychology)
▫ Resources for service learning courses are at:
http://www.scra27.org/resources/educationc/teachingcp/c
ommunitys
Introductory Teaching Exercise:
Origins of Homelessness
Why do some people become
homeless?
Why do so many people
become homeless?
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Alcohol, drugs
Mental illness
Job loss
Underwater on mortgage
Laziness
Bad luck
Poverty, inequality
Recession
Foreclosure crisis
Unemployment rates
1
Annual Percentage Rates of Shelter Use by Age
0.9
Percentage
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
<1 1-5 6-12
13-17
18-30
31-50
51-60
Social psychology: Achievement Gap
• Social Psychologists study stereotype threat, implicit
theories of intelligence, etc.
• Community psychologist Kenneth Maton in collaboration
with university president Freeman Hrabowski closed the
gap in STEM disciplines at UMBC
▫ African American students have GPAs comparable to
Caucasian and Asian students
▫ A third of African American graduates are in STEM majors
▫ University is major contributor of African American
students to science Ph.D. programs
UMBC Meyerhoff Program (Maton)
Transformation of Culture
Theory of Empowering Settings
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•
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•
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Financial Aid
Summer bridge program
Study groups
Program values
Program community
Personal advising, counseling
Tutoring
Multiple research experiences
Faculty, administrative, family
involvement
• Mentors
• Community service
Group-based belief system
Core activities
Relational environment
Opportunity role structure
Leadership
Setting maintenance and change
Developmental Psychology:
Positive Youth Development
• Developmental psychologists study settings that
foster positive youth development
• In his book, Immigrants raising citizens, community
psychologist Hirokazu Yoshikawa followed a birth
cohort of 380 infants of African American, Chinese,
Dominican, and Mexican families through age 3:
▫ Surveys of parents
▫ Direct assessment of children
▫ Ethnographic interviews with a subset of families
Immigrants Raising Citizens (Yoshikawa)
• Children of undocumented parents showed delayed:
▫ Early language development
▫ Motor development
▫ Perceptual skills
• Mediators
▫ 24 months: Economic hardship, parental distress
▫ 36 months: Parental work conditions, low use of
center-based child care
Abnormal/Clinical: Functional Impairment
• Clinical psychologists study functional impairment
and how to overcome it.
• Community psychologist Sam Tsemberis created a
Housing First program for individuals with serious
mental illnesses and long histories of homelessness:
▫ Individuals on the street are given apartments with
private landlords, without preconditions
▫ Wrap-around services are available but under tenant
control
Pathways Housing First (Tsemberis)
• In randomized trial (Tsemberis, Gulcur, Shinn, others)
comparing housing first to the “staircase model”
housing first participants:
▫ Had 99 fewer days homeless in first year
▫ Did not differ in substance abuse
 Data were consistent with control programs sorting
rather than changing people
▫ Cost less, due to lower levels of hospitalization
▫ Got housed faster and stayed indoors longer
1
Proportion of time homeless
0.9
0.8
0.7
Quick (N=115)
Medium (N=26)
Slow (N=19)
In and Out (N=7)
Never (N=25)
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Month
8
9
10
11
12
Cluster
Membership
Quick
Medium
Slow
In and Out
Never
Outlier
N
115
26
19
7
25
10
% of % of
Exp Con
74%
17%
4%
2%
0%
2%
43%
10%
13%
4%
22%
7%
Summary for Teaching
• Community psychologists use research and theory to
empower individuals and create positive social
change
• Community psychologists focus on social contexts,
including policy contexts, that promote (or inhibit)
positive outcomes for individuals
• Many more resources at
http://www.scra27.org/education
Advising Students: Education Programs at
http://www.scra27.org/education
• 44 Ph.D. Programs
▫ 17 Community Psychology
▫ 15 Clinical/Community Psychology
▫ 12 Interdisciplinary programs
• 27 Masters programs
▫ 19 Community Psychology
▫ 3 Community-counseling/clinical
▫ 5 Interdisciplinary/prevention
Advising Students
• www.SCRA27.org website has many more resources,
including:
▫ Idealist.org article by Sharon Hakim, which is in your
meeting materials
▫ Power point by Council of Education Programs (also
shown at NITOP meeting)
• See also the Community Tool Box:
http://ctb.ku.edu/en/default.aspx
▫ Marvelous free resource with over 7,000 pages of
practical guidance in creating community change
References
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For age structure of homelessness (citation for calculation, no graph):
▫ Shinn, M. (2010). Homelessness, poverty, and social exclusion in the United States and Europe. European Journal of
Homelessness, 4, 19-44.
http://eohw.horus.be/files/freshstart/European%20Journal%20of%20Homelessness/Volume%20Four/article-1.pdf
For Maton empowerment and UMBC story
▫ Maton, K. I. (2008). Empowering community settings: Agents of individual development, community betterment, and
positive social change. American Journal of Community Psychology, 41, 4-21.
▫ Maton, K. L., Hrabowski, F.A., Özdemir, M., & Wimms, H. (2008). Enhancing representation, retention, and
achievement of minority students in higher education: A social transformation theory of change. In M. Shinn & H.
Yoshikawa (Eds.). Toward positive youth development: Transforming schools and community programs (pp. 115-132).
New York: Oxford University Press.
For Yoshikawa study of immigrant groups:
▫ Yoshikawa, H. (2012) Immigrants raising citizens: Undocumented parents and their young children. New York: Russell
Sage Foundation.
For Housing First study results
▫ Gulcur, L., Stefancic, A., Shinn, M., Tsemberis, S., & Fischer, S.N. (2003). Housing, hospitalization and cost outcomes for
homeless individuals with psychiatric disabilities participating in Continuum of Care and Housing First programmes.
Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 13,171-186.
▫ Tsemberis, S., Gulcur, L. & Nakae, M. (2004). Housing first, consumer choice, and harm reduction for homeless
individuals with a dual diagnosis. American Journal of Public Health, 94 (4), 651-656.
▫ Tsemberis, S., Moran, L.L., Shinn, M., Asmussen, S. M., & Shern, D. L. (2003). Consumer preference programs for
homeless individuals with psychiatric disabilities: A drop-in center and a supported housing program. American Journal
of Community Psychology, 32, 305-317.