Evaluating models of community psychology: Social transformation in South Africa

Abstract

Tricket (1996) described community psychology in terms of contexts of diversity within a diversity of contexts. As abstract representations of reality, various community psychological models provide further diverse contexts through which to view the diversity of community psychological reality.

The Zululand Community Psychology Project is a South African initiative aimed at improving community life. This includes treating the violent sequelae of the unjust Apartheid system through improving relationships among communities divided in terms of historical, colonial, racial, ethnic, political, gender, and other boundaries as well as promoting health and social change. The aim of this article is to evaluate the applicability of various models of community psychology used in this project.

The initial quantitative investigation in the Zululand Community Psychology Project involved five coresearchers, who evaluated five community psychology models —the mental health, social action, organizational, ecological, and phenomenological models—in terms of their differential applicability in three partnership centers, representing health, education, and business sectors of the local community. In all three contexts, the models were rank ordered by a representative of each center, an intern community psychologist, and his supervisor in terms of the models’ respective applicability to the particular partnership center concerned. Results indicated significant agreement with regard to the differential applicability of the mental health, phenomenological, and organizational models in the health, education, and business centers respectively, with the social action model being most generally applicable across all centers. This led to a further qualitative individual and focus group investigation with eight university coresearchers into the experience of social transformation with special reference to social changes needed in the South African context. These social transformation experiences and perceived changes needed are explicated.

Finally, there is discussion with regard to the evaluation of various models of community psychology in international perspective.