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Articles

Vol. 10 No. 2 (2019)

Development of Community Psychology Undergraduate Course from a Feminist Pedagogical Framework: Faculty and Students

Submitted
June 6, 2023
Published
2019-06-03

Abstract

Community psychology is typically not a part of most undergraduate curricula. Yet, undergraduate coursework in community psychology affords many advantages to students. It encourages ecological thinking and exposes students to content such as community empowerment, intervention and prevention programming design, program evaluation, and other aspects of community psychology practice. This paper describes the development of a community psychology course taught from a feminist pedagogical framework within an undergraduate-only psychology program at a mid-size comprehensive public university in the United States. As the majority of undergraduate majors in our program enter entry-level human services positions upon graduation, the course was primarily designed to expose students to alternative ways of conceptualizing the role of psychological science, mental health, and of psychologists in addressing social and community problems. A secondary goal was to provide undergraduate psychology majors with basic skills in community psychology practice. In keeping with a feminist framework, the selected activities incorporated community-based, collaborative experiential learning as much as possible. Both benefits and challenges, including the difficulties in prompting students to think ecologically; teaching sensitive topics in the classroom; the difficulties of implementing a feminist pedagogical teaching and learning framework at the undergraduate level; and helping students take ownership over their learning; are explored.