Children and Political Violence from a Social Ecological Perspective: Implications from Research on Children and Families in Northern Ireland

The effects on children of political violence are matters of international concern, with many negative effects well-documented. At the same time, relations between war, terrorism, or other forms of political violence and child development do not occur in a vacuum. The impact can be understood as related to changes in the communities, families and other social contexts in which children live, and in the psychological processes engaged by these social ecologies. To advance this process-oriented perspective, a social ecological model for the effects of political violence on children is advanced. This approach is illustrated by findings and methods from an ongoing research project on political violence and children in Northern Ireland. Aims of this project include both greater insight into this particular context for political violence and the provision of a template for study of the impact of children’s exposure to violence in other regions of the world. Accordingly, the applicability of this approach is considered for other social contexts, including (a) another area in the world with histories of political violence and (b) a context of community violence in the US.     

城市居民社区组织意识研究综述

社区组织意识是社区成员与社区组织在共同生活中形成的的精神联结,体现为对社区组织的认知、情感和行为意愿。文章对社区组织意识概念、状况和影响因素进行了论述,并提出社区组织意识研究存在的不足,及对未来研究的展望。     

The Meaning of Discipleship

This article is an attempt to use academic tools to bring out the meaning of discipleship from the practitioners' perspective. The mandate of the Great Commission, making people disciples, is the process of making someone become like Christ. This contribution shows that as individuals learn from him and follow the pattern of Jesus' life, there will be marks of discipleship, such as commitment and being like him in deeds. The primary purpose of Jesus' coming to the world was to establish the kingdom of God through his death. The study demonstrates that the kingdom becomes evident in form and practice as people surrender to God's progressive rule. The strength and influence of the church is shown to be wholly dependent upon its commitment to authentic discipleship; that is, producing transformed lives and seeing those lives reproduced in others. The paper concludes that the transformed disciples must together take a journey of transforming communities into the kingdom of God.     

The empowering effect of punishment on forgiveness

We examined the process by which punishment enables forgiveness, testing the proposition that punishment restores a sense of justice to victims, an experience that is empowering. In Study 1 (N = 69), university students received insulting feedback and were given the opportunity (or not) to sanction the offender. In Study 2 (N = 91), participants imagined having the opportunity (or not) to recommend punishment for a person who had vandalized their house. A two‐step mediation model (punishment justice restoration empowerment forgiveness) was supported in these two studies. In Study 3 (N = 227), punishment options were expanded to test the role of victim voice in the context of third‐party and personal retributive and restorative justice responses to workplace bullying, as well as taking into account revenge as an alternative to justice restoration. When victims had voice, empowerment again played a central indirect role in relations between punishment and forgiveness.     

Predictors of Early Community Involvement: Advancing the Self and Caring for Others

Recent research on community involvement points to the importance of both agentic (advancing the self) and communal motives (serving others) as key predictors, though few studies have examined both simultaneously. At the same time, research has identified generativity, defined as concern for future generations as a legacy of the self, as particularly relevant for community involvement. Moreover, generativity involves both agentic and communal motives, meaning that advancing personal goals and caring for others are integrated in this construct. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how individual differences in attributes pertaining to self and to others—specifically, self‐esteem, initiative, and empathy—related to both generativity and community involvement. A sample of adolescents (N = 160; 64% female, M_age = 17) and a sample of young adults (N = 237; 84% female, M_age = 20) completed a survey including measures of community involvement and generativity. Generative concern fully mediated the associations between individual differences (self‐esteem, initiative, and empathy) and community involvement, suggesting that the early generativity has a role in fostering capacities and contribution in youth. These developmental indicators pertaining to self and others link to actions that benefit the community through a desire to benefit future generations.     

On the Historical and Conceptual Foundations of a Community Psychology of Social Transformation

We examine historical and conceptual literature in community psychology in order to understand the field's potential to be the socially transformative subdiscipline of psychology to which it aspires. By reviewing papers from two prominent journals and other literature, we conclude that the claim that community psychology is well‐suited to social transformation, because it is a product of Sixties' radicalism and is theoretically equipped, is untenable. Systematic accounts of the subdiscipline's origins suggest that the transformative aspirations of current community psychologists do not correspond to the subdiscipline's reformist past. Furthermore, in analyzing three related concepts currently employed in the field—social justice, power, and praxis—we show that each suffers from conceptual ambiguity and a restricted political scope. These conceptual flaws, coupled with community psychology's historical inclination toward social reform, inhibit the possibility of contributing to radical social transformation. We conclude that neither questionable historical claims nor ambiguous and politically dubious concepts support a community psychology of social transformation. We offer solutions for the historical and conceptual problems we identify and, as a broader solution to the problem of engaging in socially transformative work, propose that community psychologists should seek direct political engagement in solidarity with other citizens as fellow citizens not as psychologists.     

Complicating Narratives: Defining and Deconstructing Ethical Challenges in Community Psychology

In this concluding essay, we review the case studies presented in this Special Issue and examine whether community psychology has a distinctive approach to defining and resolving the core ethical canons of the Belmont Report (1979): Respect for Persons, Beneficence, and Justice. For two of these Principles—Respect for Persons and Beneficence—community psychologists elaborate upon and extend their definitions to consider their meaning in community‐based, social justice‐oriented research. The field's approach to Respect for Persons is multilevel in nature; in addition to respecting individuals and their diverse identities, we also have obligations to respect our community partnerships, the communities with whom we work, and the populations and cultures represented in our work. Similarly, for community psychologists, Beneficence is a multilevel construct that considers risks and benefits at the group, community, and cultural levels of analysis. With respect to Justice, community psychologists’ views of our ethical responsibilities are qualitatively different in meaning from the original Belmont Report and from disciplinary‐specific interpretations of this principle in ethical guidance documents from psychology, sociology, and evaluation. Our valuing of social change demands that we contribute to individual and group empowerment and liberation, and in so doing, that we avoid collusion with oppressive systems. Thus, we define our ethical responsibilities for promoting Justice as more action‐oriented than do other disciplines. The essay closes with an exploration of future directions for developing a comprehensive ethical framework for community psychology.     

“But We Want to Work”: The Movement of Child Workers in Peru and the Actions for Reducing Child Labor

The program Edúcame Primero (Educate Me First) is an evidence‐based practice for eradicating child labor that has been applied with positive results in Colombia, Peru, and several Central American countries. In this article, we describe the difficulties of implementing the program in two poor areas of Lima (Peru) between 2014 and 2016. Specifically, we discuss three ethical challenges faced during the implementation of the program: (a) the existence of a movement of working children that defends the right of children to work; (b) the polarization of some community‐based associations and government institutions on how to deal with the problems of working children; and (c) the use of network indicators in the evaluation of the community's level of cohesion. Taking the Code of Ethics of the General Council of Associations of Psychologists in Spain as a guide, we adopted a consensus approach in planning and research design, combining different criteria of value with the participation of different stakeholders. The implementation of the program in Peru gave preference to developing skills in children over changing attitudes in relation to child protection, although the intervention openly declared its aims when engaging institutions and families. Finally, we address how social network research places special ethical demands on conventional ethical standards. Our experience with this project shows the importance of acting as a bridge between different stakeholders and assessing how all of them benefit from the intervention.     

Dating and Sexual Violence Research in the Schools: Balancing Protection of Confidentiality with Supporting the Welfare of Survivors

Rigorous research and program evaluation are needed to understand the experience of dating and sexual violence among youth and the impact of prevention and intervention efforts. Our dilemma in doing this work occurred when youth disclosed dating and sexual violence on a research survey. What responsibility do researchers have to protect survivors’ confidentiality as a research participant versus taking steps to ensure the student has the opportunity to access help? In our evaluation of a pilot dating violence prevention program, our protocols employed widely used procedures for providing resources to participants upon their completion of the survey and de‐identifying survey data. Upon reviewing preliminary survey results, we became concerned that these established procedures were not sufficient to support research participants who were adolescent survivors of dating and sexual violence. We followed a structured ethical decision‐making process to examine legal and ethical considerations, consult with colleagues, consider impacts and alternative solutions, and ultimately find a solution. Through this process, we developed procedures that balance participant confidentiality and the desire to support the welfare of survivors, which other researchers may want to employ when conducting youth sexual and dating violence research in school and community settings.     

共同体:一种想象出来的安全感——鲍曼对共同体主义的批评

共同体主义是以批判自由主义而著称的一个政治哲学流派,而鲍曼却从经验层面质疑共同体主义本身的意义。共同体是安全和谐的象征,但被现代民族国家摧毁和置换之后,成为一种人们想象出来的安全感。当代社会对共同体的强烈向往是人们对自由与安全失衡的心理反应,是由于人们在民族国家衰微之后拥有更多的自由但却又陷入社会的不稳定状态中。共同体主义并不能解决自由主义面临的危机,二者都无法解除当今全球化进程中人们遭遇的困境。