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Articles

Vol. 3 No. 1 (2012)

Community Psychology as a Linking Science Potentials and Challenges for Transdisciplinary Competences

Submitted
June 9, 2023
Published
2012-03-15

Abstract

In a globalized world, traditional values of Community Psychology, like community building, social change and empowerment, require more than working in a local community and/or improving the social situation of specific groups. While this work will remain an important core part of Community Psychology, the field of Community Psychology also should empower itself: by using its competencies to develop social innovations, focusing at emerging futures by developing shared goals (and take shared risks), and by collaborating with other disciplines, societal institutions, business companies or other actors in society in order to make a difference in the world. Community Psychology as a global academic field and a practical challenges has a rich history based on different disciplines, on various political and value backgrounds coming from traditional and industrialized regions and countries from all parts of the world. To use this richness, we have to start to learn from each other and to value different approaches. Therefore, in the future, Community Psychology should focus both on macro- and micro-issues of community analysis and community building, and it should develop its identity as a “linking science” fertilizing different approaches into a both overall and culture-specific approach of community-based research and practice. To achieve these goals, it will be important to elaborate and re-identify the “DSA of community psychology”: Design Skills to develop both strategicinnovative and creative abilities in order to nurture mutual knowing, awareness and playfulness, Social Skills to enhance the art of community building as a collaborative and empowering process, leading to social responsiveness and inclusion. Action Skills to learn how to co-create, implement and evaluate new concepts and social innovations to build communities in different settings.