Cultural Community Psychology

Most of the readings I've done over the past two weeks had to do with the development of Cultural Community Psychology. But this in a very broad sense. The field of Community Psychology is actually only about half a century old, measuring from its official inception. However, chapters and articles by Community Psychologists that I've been reading have looked farther into the past, pulling up movements and events that contributed to the evolution of the mindset that led to the evolution of Community Psychology.

And this is the interesting thing to me.

One of the readings, for instance, had to do with the Settlement Houses 'round the turn of the last century. Jane Adams, Hull House, all that stuff. And of course I already knew the basics of that history. I did, after all, just spend four years as a full time volunteer in Chicago. I'd have been hard put to not learn anything about Hull House. That being said, I also hadn't gone out of my way to learn more than the basics. What I didn't realize was how similar in motivation and in deed the Settlement Houses were to the Catholic Worker Movement and to the international and domestic full time volunteer programs. And I didn't realize that workers in Hull House did a lot of the same exact work in Chicago that we were doing a century later. I was so excited to have been given this historical perspective.

Another chapter I was reading discussed various methods of research that Community Psychologists have employed and what successes and limitations come with them. It was at this time that I learned that I do, in fact, have an awful lot of research experience. I've just never done it formally. Sorting through the data and creating reports is what will be new to me here. But the research methods most often involved in Community Psychology have to do with joining a community, learning its ins and outs, working with them intensively, talking with them, interviewing them, and then reporting what you find, in vivid detail, to people outside of that community. And, again, I've done that, have been doing that for years. I've just never been peer-reviewed.

The more I learn about this field that I have joined, the more thankful I am that it is not what I thought it was. My preconceptions of what it would mean to become a Research Psychologist involved a lot of staunch stand-offishness. I imagined myself having to fight my field to be able to be involved in a community and actually develop proper relationships with them. I imagined peers telling me I would be compromising the validity of my research if I bothered to give a damn about what was actually happening with thus and such community. But no, there is a half-century of precedent behind the sort of work I want to do. Cultural Community Psychology is still a very small field, but it is established.

When I told Cliff (my advisor) about this, he just laughed. He told me that not many people know about Community Psychology because it's not taught much in undergrad.

I applied to two schools that had a Community Psychology program. The others I applied to were Social Psychology or Developmental Psychology. And of course, I chose the schools based on the fact that very few schools in the United States study racism. I applied to the ones that did, regardless of what their program was called. I feel so lucky that I wound up in Community Psychology. This would be a very different experience somewhere else.

Furthermore, I feel like I ought to give Cliff some kudos for picking me out. That was a really good call on his part. I don't know that he read through my application and thought, "Man, she'd be perfect!" But the more I learn about what it is we do here, the more I think, "Man, I'm perfect for this!" In fact, I've already been doing it for years.