Ongoing discussions persist regarding the potential usefulness and/or harmfulness of a defined set of core competencies in the field of community psychology. The competency thesis is that identification of core competencies can help define the field and distinguish the capabilities of community psychologists (Dalton & Wolfe, 2012). A set of competencies has implications for training and education, including clarity regarding what skills current and future students can expect to learn and what community psychologists may be expected to do. However, others have criticized the nature of standardized competencies. Presenting the antithesis to the competency thesis, Dzidic, Breen and Bishop (2013) question if compartmentalized competencies focus too much on static, individually oriented skills. They may distract from considerations of context, ethics and power within the dynamic ecologies of community psychology practice.
Community psychology education and training programs are challenged with exposing students to a variety of central competencies while preparing them to engage in value-based research and practice in context. This article focuses on three applications of participatory pedagogy within the classroom that sought to synthesize the dialectic between core competencies and values-based, dynamic community psychology practice. Instructional materials for all three sessions are appended both for readers’ perusal as examples and for possible future adaptation and use in other community psychology courses. Participatory pedagogical approaches seek to foster student engagement, reflection, and collaboration to promote critical thinking, knowledge application and problem solving. In so doing, participatory pedagogy can bridge the gap between competencies and context, and offer at least a partial synthesis for the competency dialectic in community psychology education and training.