Empowering Settings and Voices for Social Change


Book Description

Empowering Settings and Voices for Social Change combines a focus on understanding social settings as loci for empowering intervention with a focus on understanding and giving voice to citizens. Volume chapters illuminate advances in theory and method relevant to changing a broad spectrum of social settings from a strengths-based perspective.




Empowering Settings and Voices for Social Change


Book Description

This edited volume combines a focus on understanding social settings as loci for empowering intervention with a focus on understanding and giving voice to citizens. It illuminates advances in theory and method relevant to changing a broad spectrum of social settings from a strengths-based perspective.




Community Power and Empowerment


Book Description

Many people want to help bring about changes in their neighborhoods, workplaces, and communities. Leaders and scholars of change efforts are likewise eager for insights into what makes some organizations and coalitions capable of building and exercising power. Why are some groups successful in making changes in policies and systems and in sustaining their momentum over time, while others struggle or never really get off the ground? With Community Power and Empowerment, Brian D. Christens brings the most comprehensive analysis of empowerment theory yet conducted to bear on these questions, taking aim at many of the longstanding weaknesses and ambiguities of empowerment theory, research, and practice. For example, one major hindrance is that most notions of empowerment have not been coherently connected with community power. In addition, research has emphasized psychological aspects of empowerment over organizational processes, and has neglected community empowerment processes to an even greater extent. By linking empowerment and community power, Christens constructs a holistic framework for assessing and comparing community-driven change efforts. This book offers new guidance for inquiries into outcomes and impacts of empowerment processes on health and well-being, providing a resource for researchers, organizational leaders, practitioners, and anyone interested in collective action for change.




Empowering Settings and Voices for Social Change


Book Description

Empowering Settings and Voices for Social Change combines a focus on understanding social settings as loci for empowering intervention with a focus on understanding and giving voice to citizens. The volume illuminates advances in theory and method relevant to changing a broad spectrum of social settings (including programs, organizations, institutions, communities and social policy) from a strengths-based perspective. Three cross-cutting concepts -- a strengths-based approach to research and social action, empowerment, and narrative research methods -- serve as integrating and foundational themes.Part I takes up issues of setting processes and outcomes of influence, research methods, and implications for setting and community change efforts and social policy. Questions addressed in Part I include: What is the nature of current and future conceptualizations of social settings? What are the actionable features in social settings? How can settings that place a premium on empowerment and promotion be created or restructured? What are the organizational characteristics of empowering community settings? What mechanisms mediate the impact of these characteristics on individual well-being?Part II examines how action scientists have sought to understand and amplify the voices of those individuals and communities who serve as the focus of their research and social change actions. Part II authors explore the role of institutional beliefs, community narratives, and personal stories in recovery from serious mental illness; trace the cultural contours of "mental health" among the Gros Ventres of the Fort Belknap Indian reservation; examine youth voice in the juvenile justice system, illuminating the loss of focus on individualized justice and accountability to youth; and, outline ways in which community narrative can enrich culturally anchored work in prevention and public policy. Finally, chapters in Part III seek to situate the rest of the volume's chapters in the context of decades of work on empowering settings, giving voice and social change.




Community Psychology


Book Description

Community Psychology, 5/e focuses on the prevention of problems, the promotion of well-being, empowerment of members within a community, the appreciation of diversity, and an ecological model for the understanding of human behavior. Attention is paid to both “classic” early writings and the most recent journal articles and reviews by today’s practitioners and researchers. Historical and alternative methods of effecting social change are explored in this book, with the overall theme that the environment is as important as the individual in it. This text is available in a variety of formats – digital and print. Learning Goals Upon completing this book, readers will be able to: Understand the historical and contemporary principles of community psychology. Apply theory and research to social services, mental health, health, legal, and public health systems




The Cambridge Handbook of Community Empowerment


Book Description

Power and empowerment are critical topics for social change. This handbook maps out ways that people can collectively engage with, influence, and change systems that affect their lives, particularly the systems that maintain inequality and oppression. It includes in-depth examinations of a variety of approaches to building and exercising community power in local organizations, institutions, and settings. Each chapter examines a particular approach, critically engaging with contemporary research on how and when collective action can be most effective at producing change within communities and societal systems. By examining a range of approaches in diverse contexts, this book provides new insights for scholars, practitioners, and engaged resident-leaders aiming to be more precise, strategic, and innovative in their efforts to build and sustain community power. It is the ideal resource for those working with community groups to build more just and equitable systems.




Community Psychology and Community Mental Health


Book Description

Community Psychology and Community Mental Health provides empirical justification and a conceptual foundation for transformative change in mental health, based on community psychology values and principles of ecology, collaboration, empowerment, and social justice.




Teaching and Teacher Education


Book Description

This edited volume brings together diverse thinkers and practitioners from the field of teaching and teacher education as it pertains to educational development in South Asia. In this volume, authors draw from their research, practice, and field experiences, showcasing how teaching and teacher education are currently being carried out, understood, theorized, debated, and implemented for the education of children and teachers alike in South Asia. The volume also includes practitioner voices, which are often marginalized in academic discourse. This book acts as a key reference text for academics and practitioners interested in the intersection of education and development in the region, and in particular what it takes to pull off ambitious teaching and teacher education in South Asia.




Working with Design Clients


Book Description

The studio is a core strand of design education, and working with real clients is one of the most valuable ways for students to develop their professional design practice skills. The book is a practical guide to working on real-life briefs in the design studio - how to collaborate with and connect to communities, find and retain clients, and manage real-world design problems. Using tools and frameworks based on years of research and experience, students can develop their professional skills in a supportive environment. The book is divided into four sections: - Why (industry connections, experiential learning, personal empowerment) - What (engaging with communities, client work, structure) - Who (work roles, client relationships, articulating value) - How (launching, logistics, planning) The final section of the book covers information for those expanding into student-led studios, and includes information on strategies, financing and how to plan for the future. Supported by a companion website featuring downloads and resources for both students and instructors.




The New African Diaspora in the United States


Book Description

Fast growing in population, African immigrants in the United States have become a significant force, to the point that the idea of a new African diaspora is now a reality. This thriving community has opened new arenas of scholarly discourse on Black Atlantic history beyond the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its legacies. This book investigates the complex dynamic forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, this new diaspora. In eleven original essays, the volume examines pertinent themes, such as: immigration, integration dilemmas, identity construction, brain drain, remittances, expanding African religious space, and how these dynamics impact and intersect with the African homeland. With contributors from both sides of the Atlantic that represent a diverse range of academic disciplines, this book offers a broad perspective on emerging themes in contemporary African diasporan experiences. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of African and African-American Studies, Sociology, and History.