Transforming community psychology.
Community psychology has made great strides in including context when understanding people in their environments. While continuing to consider context, we need to expand our conceptualization of the individual in community settings. I propose 3 principles: (1) focus our research on people, not programs; (2) consider multiple dimensions of people's experience; and (3) conceptualize people as agentic and not simply as reactors to the environmental press. I illustrate those principles with research on domestic violence and welfare reform. In doing so, I call attention both to the way in which aspects of people's lives intersect with community settings, and to the embeddedness of people's lives (and community settings) in larger social structures.
Riger
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Department of Psychology (M/C 285), University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 West Harrison Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607-7137, USA. sriger@uic.edu
D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000592:standards; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D019513:Feminism / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011593:Psychology, Social / Q000266:history