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Articles

Vol. 7 No. 2 (2016)

Theories, Models, and Science in Community Psychology

Submitted
June 7, 2023
Published
2024-10-08

Abstract

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the paper by Jason, Stevens, Ram, Miller, Beasley, and Gleason (2016) entitled, “Theories in the Field of Community Psychology.” The authors tackle an important, but often neglected issue – the use of theories in science – and consider how well theories in community psychology advance scientific inquiry. Jason et al. (2016) provide a valuable service to our field in their examination of theories in community psychology, and specifically, theories in three major areas: ecological theory, sense of community, and empowerment. Their brief review of theory in each area provides a useful summary and a call to action for further specification of theory. They have started a conversation vital to our field’s future. Despite my enthusiasm for several parts of their paper, I have a number of concerns. These include the authors’: 1) assumptions about contemporary science, 2) assessment of theories in community psychology relative to those in other fields in psychology, 3) overemphasis on theory as opposed to models in science, and 4) lack of attention to other epistemologies in community psychology that hold scientific promise for our field. I discuss each of these briefly below.