Community Psychology: Challenges, Controversies and Emerging Consensus

This book is both a sequel to and expansion of Community Psychology, published in 1992. It serves as a textbook for courses on community psychology but now also includes material on inequality and health, since both are concerned with the way an individual‘s social setting and the systems with which they interact affect their problems and the solutions they devise. Part 1 sets the scene by locating community psychology in its historical and contemporary context. In Part 2, disempowered groups and their physical and mental health are considered. Finally in Part 3 the application of community psychology is discussed, and the ways in which marginalised people can be helped by strengthening their communities highlighted.

From the back cover:

Community psychology is an exciting, controversial and challenging field within psychology. In this engaging and lively book, internationally renowned community psychologist Jim Orford discusses the latest debates, research and practices within this growing field.

Community Psychology: Challenges, Controversies and Emerging Consensus covers concepts and practices that range from those that derive from the more radical critical and liberatory approaches to the subject to those from health and applied social psychology. The book engages with a number of controversies such as conflicting ideas about appropriate sources of knowledge, what is meant by social position and its relationship with health, and the perceived value to the field of the concept of social capital. Community Psychology: Challenges, Controversies and Emerging Consensus offers readers a path through such controversies and seeks to reconcile the different approaches within the field.

Based on international qualitative and quantitative research, and illustrated with practical examples of community psychology work, this book is an essential read for both novice and experienced community psychologists, health and social psychologists and all those studying psychology at post–graduate level.

About the Author:

Professor Jim Orford, University of Birmingham, UK