Ecology, Wicked Problems, and the Context of Community Interventions.

The concept of ecology has, over time, become increasingly important as a frame for conducting community interventions. While multiple ecological frameworks have been proposed both within and outside public health, most have drawn on Bronfenbrenner's work and the concern with multiple levels of the ecological context. The present article presents an ecological metaphor for community intervention developed in community psychology over the past 50 years. This perspective was specifically developed to conduct community research and intervention in the spirit of community development. The article begins with a brief discussion of social problems as "wicked problems" defying preordained and prescribed solutions. It then organizes the presentation of the ecological metaphor around five Cs that, together, provide an overview of the main points of the perspective: contextualist philosophy of science, community as a multilevel concept, culture and diversity as critical community-defining concepts, collaboration as a fundamental part of the ecology of intervention, and commitment (to community over time). Each of these five Cs adds to an appreciation of the differing aspects of the community intervention process as an ecological enterprise. Embedded in the five Cs are four ecological processes drawn from field biology that are metaphorically useful in providing a cognitive map for understanding community and assessing community impact: interdependence, cycling of resources, adaptation, and succession. Together, this ecological perspective both reflects and differs from extant perspectives in public health and, as such, is intended to contribute to furthering ecological thinking and acting more generally in community interventions.

Religion in the Hallways: Academic Performance and Psychological Distress among Immigrant origin Muslim Adolescents in High Schools.

Islamic norms and Islamophobia present unique challenges for Muslim adolescents in Western countries. For Muslim students, even "secular" public schools are not a religion-free space because their religious beliefs and values are central in their manner of living. To inquire more about these issues, an exploratory sequential design mixed-method study was conducted that included focus groups and a survey addressing the public school experiences of Muslim adolescents in a Midwestern state in the United States and how those experiences are related to their academic achievement, educational aspirations, and psychological adjustment. Overall, the findings characterize this study's sample as coping well in the school context in terms of academic achievement, high educational expectations, and relatively low levels of psychological distress. However, those who experience greater frequency and severity of hassles at school report higher levels of psychological distress. In particular, the frequency of hassles associated with representing Islam, limited English competency, relations with both Muslim and non-Muslim peers, and religious discrimination at school related to increased distress. Together, these findings suggest the importance of considering both individual and ecological determinants of wellbeing for Muslim adolescents. The findings also suggest the importance of looking more carefully at the sample, context, and time when the data were collected before making generalizations within or across cultural and/or religious groups.

Ethnic Clusters in Public Housing and Independent Living of Elderly Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union.

The study examines the effects of ethnic clusters and independent living arrangements on adaptation of elderly immigrants from the Former Soviet Union. The multigenerational living arrangements were compared with independent living in a dispersed ethnic community and in an ethnic cluster of public housing. The residents of the ethnic clusters of public housing reported poorer health, were more reliant on government resources, and experienced greater acculturative hassles. However, public housing residents reported significantly larger Russian-speaking and American social networks, greater American acculturation, higher social support from neighbors, as well as lower cultural alienation. In contrast, the multigenerational living arrangements were related to greater social support from extended family and higher extended family satisfaction. While, the independent living in the dispersed ethnic community was associated with smaller American social networks and higher levels of cultural alienation. The results highlight how the ecologies of different living arrangements are reflected in the nature of acculturative, social, and psychological experiences of elderly immigrants.

Seymour Sarason Remembered: "Plus ça change ", "Psychology Misdirected", and "Community Psychology and the Anarchist Insight".

The intellectual legacy of Seymour Sarason continues to serve as a critical resource for the field of community psychology. The present paper draws on one of Sarason's favorite aphorisms and two of his seminal writings to suggest the relevance of ideas articulated 35-40 years ago for the current time. Each in their own way highlights the importance of unearthing and interrogating core assumptions underlying our research and our efforts to make a positive difference. The aphorism reminds us that the rhetoric of change is far easier to articulate than to enact and all too often ignores or disguises issues of power among actors. The "misdirection" of Psychology reflected his assertion that the asocial, acultural, and ahistorical nature of American Psychology reflected American culture more generally and ill prepared it to understand and engage in social change, particularly with respect to educational reform. The "anarchist insight" articulated his belief in interrogating the implications of the increasingly interdependent relationship of science and the state for the autonomy of scientists and scientific inquiry. The evidence-based practice movement is offered as an example of the current day relevance of the aphorism and core insights of these two papers. The paper concludes with a plea to rekindle the discussion and continued examination of Sarason's paradigmatic insights for the intellectual and social development of the field.

Acculturation and adjustment of elderly émigrés from the former Soviet Union: A life domains perspective / Aculturación y adaptación de personas mayores exiliadas de la antigua Unión Soviética: Una perspectiva desde las facetas de la vida

Former Soviet émigrés in the United States are on average older than other immigrant groups, with adults over 65 comprising a large portion of the Russian-speaking population. Despite known risks associated with old-age migration, however, researchers and providers have underestimated adjustment difficulties for Russian-speaking elderly in U.S. These older adults tend to acquire a new culture with difficulty and remain highly oriented towards their heritage culture. However, limited research examines how acculturation to both the culture of origin and the host culture contributes to wellbeing for this immigrant group. This study assesses the adaptive value of host and heritage acculturation across several domains in the lives of older émigrés from the former Soviet Union resettled in the Baltimore and Washington, DC areas in the United States. Acculturation level with respect to both host and heritage culture was measured with the Language, Identity, and Behavior Scale (LIB; Birman & Trickett, 2001) and used to predict psychological, family, social, and medical care adjustment outcomes. Results suggest that acculturation to the host or heritage culture has different functions depending on life domain. Particularly, high American acculturation contributed to better adjustment in the psychological, family, and social domains. Heritage acculturation was associated with better outcomes in the social domain and had mixed effects for psychological adjustment. Theoretical implications highlight the importance of evaluating multiple life domains of adapting through a bilinear acculturation model for the understudied population of elderly immigrants

Las personas ex-soviéticas que se exiliaron a los EE.UU. tienen una media de edad superior a la de otros grupos de inmigrantes; entre ellas, los adultos que superan los 65 años suponen un gran porcentaje de la población ruso parlante. A pesar de que se conocen los riesgos asociados con la inmigración de personas mayores, los investigadores y agentes que prestan servicios han subestimado las dificultades de adaptación de las per sonas mayores ruso parlantes en los EE.UU. A estas personas les cuesta adquirir una nueva cultura y siguen muy orientados hacia su cultura de origen. No obstante, no abunda la investigación que analice de qué manera contribuye al bienestar de este grupo de inmigrantes la aculturación tanto en la cultura de origen como en la cultura de acogida. Este estudio analiza el valor adaptativo de la aculturación de origen y de acogida en diversas facetas de la vida de las personas de más edad que se exiliaron de la antigua Unión Soviética y se establecieron en EE.UU. en zonas de Baltimore y Washington DC. El nivel de aculturación tanto en la cultura de acogida como en la de origen se ha medido con la Escala de Idioma, Identidad y Comportamiento (LIB; Birman& Trickett, 2001), que se utilizó para predecir el grado de ajuste psicológico, familiar, social y sanitario.Los resultados indican que la asimilación de la cultura de acogida o de origen tiene funciones diferentes dependiendode la faceta de la vida. En concreto una elevada aculturación estadounidense contribuía a una mejoradaptación en las facetas psicológica, familiar y social. La aculturación de origen se asociaba a mejores resultadosen la faceta social aunque eran contradictorios en el ajuste psicológico. Las implicaciones teóricasdestacan la importancia de evaluar las distintas facetas de la vida en la adaptación a un modelo de aculturaciónbilineal en el caso de la población de inmigrantes mayores, escasamente estudiada

Collaborative measurement development as a tool in CBPR: measurement development and adaptation within the cultures of communities.

This paper describes the processes we engaged into develop a measurement protocol used to assess the outcomes in a community based suicide and alcohol abuse prevention project with two Alaska Native communities. While the literature on community-based participatory research (CBPR) is substantial regarding the importance of collaborations, few studies have reported on this collaboration in the process of developing measures to assess CBPR projects. We first tell a story of the processes around the standard issues of doing cross-cultural work on measurement development related to areas of equivalence. A second story is provided that highlights how community differences within the same cultural group can affect both the process and content of culturally relevant measurement selection, adaptation, and development.

Determinants and consequences of child culture brokering in families from the former Soviet Union.

Child culture brokering occurs when immigrant children help their families navigate the new culture and language. The present study develops a model of the child culture broker role that situates it within the family and community economic and acculturative contexts of 328 families from the former Soviet Union. Path analysis was utilized to explore the relationships of community and family economic and cultural contexts with child culture brokering, child emotional distress, and family disagreements. All children reported some culture brokering for their parents. Less English proficient parents with lower status jobs, and living in areas with more Russian speaking families tended to utilize their children as brokers more often. Further, community economic conditions also predicted brokering indirectly, mediated by parent job social status. Brokering was related to child emotional distress and family disagreements. Further, culture brokering was a mediator of the impact of parent job social status on both child emotional distress and family disagreements. These results add to our understanding of the culture broker role and emphasize the utility of approaching research on it from an ecological perspective.

Advancing the science of community-level interventions.

Community interventions are complex social processes that need to move beyond single interventions and outcomes at individual levels of short-term change. A scientific paradigm is emerging that supports collaborative, multilevel, culturally situated community interventions aimed at creating sustainable community-level impact. This paradigm is rooted in a deep history of ecological and collaborative thinking across public health, psychology, anthropology, and other fields of social science. The new paradigm makes a number of primary assertions that affect conceptualization of health issues, intervention design, and intervention evaluation. To elaborate the paradigm and advance the science of community intervention, we offer suggestions for promoting a scientific agenda, developing collaborations among professionals and communities, and examining the culture of science.

From "Water Boiling in a Peruvian Town" to "Letting them Die": culture, community intervention, and the metabolic balance between patience and zeal.

While the concept of culture has long been central to community psychology research and intervention, it has most frequently referred to the communities in which such work occurs. The purpose of this paper is to reframe this discussion by viewing community interventions as instances of intercultural contact between the culture of science, reflected in community intervention research, and the culture of the communities in which those interventions occur. Following a brief discussion of the complexities of culture as a concept, two illustrative stories of failed community interventions are provided to highlight the centrality of cultural and contextual understanding as prelude to community intervention. These stories, set 50 years apart, reflect the depth and pervasive influence of both the culture of science and the culture of communities. Next, a series of propositions about the culture of social science as a partial reflection of the broader culture of the United States are offered, and their implications for the conduct of community interventions drawn. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations which, together, provide an ecological mind-set for taking culture seriously in community interventions. Central to this mind set are the importance of focusing on communities rather than programs and emphasizing the intervention goal of choice over change.

Multilevel community-based culturally situated interventions and community impact: an ecological perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to apply an ecological perspective to the conduct of multilevel community-based culturally-situated interventions. After a discussion of the emerging consensus about the value of approaching such interventions ecologically, the paper outlines a series of questions stimulated by an ecological perspective that can guide further theory development in conducting multilevel interventions. These questions all derive from the importance of assessing the local community ecology where the intervention occurs. The paper concludes with a series of topics which, taken together, provide a roadmap for further conceptual development of multilevel interventions as vehicles for long-range community impact.

Summary comments: multi-level community based culturally situated interventions.

In this critical summary the editors summarize main themes that cut across special issue papers including challenges in introducing interventions into communities theorized as dynamic systems, strengths and problems presented by multilevel interventions in single communities, the value of community based culturally situated preventive interventions, and some solutions to evaluation of interventions in complex social settings.

Community psychology: individuals and interventions in community context.

Community psychology has historically focused on understanding individual behavior in sociocultural context, assessing high-impact contexts, and working in and with communities to improve their resources and influence over their futures. This review adopts an ecological perspective on recent developments in the field, beginning with philosophy of science and progressing through a series of substantive research and intervention domains that characterize current work. These domains include research on the ecology of lives, the assessment of social settings and their impact on behavior, culture and diversity as expressed in the community research process, and community intervention.

The spirit of ecological inquiry and intervention research reports: a heuristic elaboration.

One distinctive approach to community psychology intervention research involves finding ways to contribute to the development of communities. Ecological inquiry is a primary theoretical framework for this work. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the spirit of ecological inquiry may be expressed in the descriptions of how we design, conduct, and evaluate community interventions. We first elaborate a set of criteria as a heuristic framework for carrying out and documenting community intervention writing, theory, and action. We then pilot the application of these criteria to explore the presence of an ecological emphasis within intervention studies published in the AJCP between 1994 and 2002. This exercise helped illuminate the extent to which an ecological perspective is reflected in intervention accounts, and select intervention accounts that reflect a substantial ecological emphasis are described. Further, this review highlights the areas of our written work which contain fewer makers of ecological inquiry, as with the relevant exclusion of citizens in formative intervention roles. We conclude with a series of reflections about constraints on published intervention accounts and recommendations for those interested in furthering the spirit of ecological inquiry through their research and action commitments to community development.

Adolescent culture brokering and family functioning: a study of families from Vietnam.

In immigrant families, culture brokering (CB) refers to the ways in which children and adolescents serve as mediator between their family and aspects of the new culture. This study focused on the debate in the literature about whether CB implies "role reversal" in the family and "adultification" of the adolescent or whether CB is better understood as simply one of the many ways that immigrant children contribute to family functioning. Results indicated a mixed picture with respect to this debate. Greater amounts of adolescent CB were indeed related to higher adolescent reports of family conflict, but also to greater family adaptability. In addition, the amount of CB was unrelated to family satisfaction and family cohesion. Secondary questions centered on the relationship of CB to adolescent and parent demographic and acculturation variables. Here, CB was related to parent acculturation patterns but not those of adolescents. Implications for future research on the CB role are discussed.

Immigrant adolescents behaving as culture brokers: a study of families from the former Soviet Union.

In immigrant families, culture brokering (CB) occurs when children mediate the new culture for their family. The authors examined CB in Russian immigrant adolescent-mother dyads (N=226) to determine the types and amounts of CB that Russian adolescents performed, why adolescents assumed the CB role, and how the role affected adolescent and familial functioning. The present results indicated that most adolescents reported CB for their families (89%). Children of families that more recently arrived in the U.S., with mothers who were less American-language acculturated, culture brokered more. Higher levels of CB related to (a) higher adolescent stress and reports of problems at home and with friends and (b) lower feelings of school membership. Parent-reported problems at home did not relate to CB. The authors discussed implications for future research on the role of the child as culture broker.

A tribute to James Gordon Kelly.

During the June 2001, eighth biennial meeting of the Society for Community Research and Action in Atlanta, a wide variety of community psychologists across generations attended a tribute in honor of James Gordon Kelly. What follows is an attempt to capture the spirit of the afternoon tribute as expressed through remarks made by colleagues and readings of letters sent by those unable to attend. The wide range of individuals represented here attests to the many additive ways in which Jim has cared about the field of community psychology and has contributed to its essence. Three additional invited contributions are included wherein Dick Reppucci, Rhona Weinstein, and Julian Rappaport reflect on the influence of Jim on their own career and on the development of the field.