Conclusion 443were beginning to see community members as “effective
change agents” within their own neighborhoods (Bennett
et al., 1966, p. 16). Community researchers envisioned com-
munity members serving a double purpose. First, they would
assist in promoting researchers’ credibility and help re-
searchers maintain rapport with members of the community.
Second, these indigenous nonprofessionals possessed skills
that community researchers did not, including their intimate
knowledge about their own community. Through their sub-
jective analyses of their experiences, community members
served as resources to their communities’ health by providing
researchers valuable information about the community, its
needs, and its natural processes in efforts to develop contex-
tually grounded interventions.
The action researcher may employ multiple methods
of assessment, including both qualitative and quantitative
techniques (K. Miller & Banyard, 1998). In general, this re-
searcher attempts to define a closer relationship between pre-
vention research and the communities where the prevention
research is occurring (Kelly et al., 1988; Reason & Bradbury,
2001). Community-based action research places emphasis on
collaborating with citizens to generate prevention services;
the needs of the community are as equally salient as the sci-
entific status of the research.
In recent years, community psychologists have consis-
tently advocated for active community participation in pre-
vention research, a trademark of action-oriented research
(Muehrer, 1997; L. Smith, 1999). In his 1997 Sarason Award
address, Murray Levine (1998) affirmed that effective pre-
ventive interventions should be “built on our understanding
of the psychological sense of community” (p. 203), ideas
expressed many years before by Seymour Sarason (Sarason,
1981, 1988). Similarly, Leonard Jason (1998) made a strong
plea for collaboration with community organizations and cit-
izens in his Distinguished Award address to the SCRA in
1997.
As community psychologists become more invested in
working in communities, more attention is likely to be
devoted to listening to the community rather then seeing
communities primarily as places to test out scientific ideas
(Seidman, Hughes, & Williams, 1993). For example, these
community-centered approaches have been found to be es-
sential in working in communities impacted by HIV/AIDS
due to the culturally bound implications of preventive
interventions (Icard, Schilling, El-Bassel, & Young, 1992;
R. Miller, Klotz, & Eckholdt, 1998; Peterson, Coates,
Catania, & Hauck, 1996). In the action research approach, the
community psychologist is viewed as one resource among
many contributors, in contrast to the prevention scientist who
is viewed as the primary expert.
The differences in approaches between the prevention sci-
entist and the action researcher reflect the differences in val-
ues of the contrasting paradigms. The tensions germinating
from these two paradigms are so disparate that they may not
be reconciled in the immediate future. Instead, these two
alternative points of view about understanding the efficacy of
prevention programs are likely to continue to develop side by
side. Interestingly, these contrasting approaches to preven-
tion have parallels to research with cultural groups. Ana
Marie Cauce and colleagues have framed these differences as
the cultural equivalence approach and the cultural variance
approach. The first approach assumes that all people are
essentially similar except for differences in life circum-
stances. The second approach holds that the unique back-
ground and experiences of each subminority group produces
fundamental differences in risk and protective factors
(Cauce, Coronado, & Watson, 1998; Roosa & Gonzales,
2000). The challenge for the future is whether the second
approach will achieve increased attention as a viable and al-
ternative view of prevention.CONCLUSIONThe history of community psychology is unique in the history
of psychology. Like other fields, the development of commu-
nity psychology is not just a history of the profession but also
a reflection of the interaction of social and cultural events and
discontent within the broader field of psychology. At a time
when the nation was experiencing a cultural revolution, psy-
chologists with a community orientation were questioning the
status quo of the field. Community psychologists protested
the medical- and disease-driven model of the mental health
professions, particularly psychiatry and clinical psychology,
and rallied for ecologically sound interventions targeting
social systems and institutions rather than individuals.
In this chapter, we aimed to understand the context and
domains that have been essential to the development of the
field in a historical and social context. We began this en-
deavor with a brief historical analysis of events leading up to
the founding of the field in 1965. The founding of the field
occurred during an awesome time in U.S. history. Though it
emerged in the liberal fervor of the 1960s, psychologists’
calls for social action, social change, and social justice can be
traced to social events of the 1940s and 1950s. Events such as
World War II and the growing malaise of the 1950s, accom-
panied by the increasing discontent among oppressed groups
such as women and racial minorities, sparked creativity, in-
novation, and protest in many areas of American life, includ-
ing within the mental health professions. The zeitgeist of the