Communities are continually shaped by immigration. As immigrants join receiving community members as members of the same community, all must co-navigate emergent and evolving relationships. These intergroup relations can range from quite positive, marked by mutual enrichment and engagement, to quite negative, marked by prejudice and discrimination. This study seeks to illuminate immigrant and receiving community member relations by exploring what factors play a role in each group's attitudes and actions toward, and experiences with, one another. Thirty first- and second-generation immigrants from Latin America and 30 third-generation or more U.S.-born respondents participated in semistructured interviews, which were thematically analyzed. Results indicated that while both intergroup contact (Allport, 1954) and the formation of common in-group identities (Gaertner, Dovidio, & Bachman, 1996) helped to create positive intergroup relations, numerous personal characteristics-including values and beliefs, visible features, and relative power-affected experiences and attitudes. Further, in the absence of knowledge based on direct contact, media played a strong role in shaping attitudes toward both groups of community members. These findings show how attitudes and actions of immigrants and receiving community members are each shaped by experiences, or lack thereof, between these groups. Moreover, this pathway is iterative and reciprocal. Therefore, efforts aimed at increasing and improving positive intergroup relations must consider the bidirectional iterative process and experiences of both groups.

This study explores the bidirectional and interactional process of acculturation from the perspectives of immigrants and receiving community members (RCMs). Our aim was to understand the experiences and interactions of different ethno-cultural groups and their impact on the functioning and dynamics of multicultural communities. We conducted a cross-national, cross-cultural study of acculturation processes, using interviews collected across two countries (Italy: urban regions of Torino and Lecce; U.S.: Baltimore/Washington corridor) and three distinct groups of immigrants-Moroccans and Albanians in Italy and Latin Americans in the United States-and RCMs in Italy and the United States. Findings show that acculturation is a complex, situated, and dynamic process, and is generally conceived as an unbalanced and individual process of accommodation, which expects the immigrant alone to adapt to the new context. The boundaries among traditionally explored acculturation strategies were blurred and while integration was the most frequently discussed strategy, it often referenced a "soft" assimilation, limited mostly to public domains. Some differences emerged between ethnic groups and generation of immigration as well as among RCMs who differed by level of contact with immigrants. The need for more flexible models and for a critical perspective on acculturation is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Guba and Lincoln (1994) argued that questions of method are secondary to the paradigm or worldview we hold. In scientific and philosophical terms, our worldview is made up of ontology (our assumptions about the nature of existence and reality) and epistemology (our belief about what knowledge is and what can be known). Methods, then, are the means by which knowledge can be sought within these assumptions and beliefs. There is a natural fit between (a) the ontology and epistemology that undergird much of community psychology and (b) the paradigms from which qualitative methods spring, leading to particular scientific approaches. The assumptions and beliefs of community psychology include the importance of context, culture, and setting; attention to the frequently ignored disjunction between grand and local theory; efforts to reframe a dominant narrative, which often searches for negative causality in the least empowered individual, into one of strength and emic (i.e., insider) resources; respect for emic perspectives and strengths; an aim to address social inequalities through research and action; and a willingness to thus be called “involved,” that is, scientifically unobjective. The congruent qualitative approaches and aims involve a focus on the discovery phase of research, including the identification of variables and working hypotheses for further study; efforts to develop holistic, detailed description of systems, theories, and processes from multiple perspectives; attention to emic perspectives; a belief that the control demanded by quantitative methods strips away the context that is central to life; concern for the inapplicability of generalized data to individual, specific experiences; and a conception of the interconnection of facts, theories, and values, which disrupts the notion that researchers can simply discard their worldviews and act objectively (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). This is not to say that quantitative methods do not contribute to community psychology, but the distinctive fit between qualitative methods and community psychology precepts seems to us to be particularly innate and direct. Qualitative methods are quite useful for what Kuhn (1962/1996) called “scientific revolution,” something community psychology has been waging since its founding in the 1960s. It is no wonder, then, that rich examples of the application of qualitative methods can be found in the global literature of community psychology today, and the field is well poised to benefit from new and novel qualitative methods utilized in allied social science fields around the world.

Although responsibility for the care, nurturance, and protection of children can sometimes be viewed as an additional stress in the lives of at-risk women, this article describes the ways in which children act as protective factors in support of Afghan women's resilience. The qualitative data presented come from 110 interviews collected in Pakistan and Afghanistan between December 2001 and July 2002 with Afghan women, children, and men associated with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). RAWA, founded in 1977, is an Afghan women's underground resistance organization that promotes resilience through humanitarian and political activities. An iterative coding framework was developed to identify and explore processes of resilience and domain specific stressors (risks) and resources (protective factors). This article discusses the role of children as protective factors for women and RAWA. Although this article explores a unique setting and context, the authors argue that attention to children's role as protective factors may provide an important, strengths-based approach and a useful mechanism to bolster women's resilience in an array of other contexts and conflicts.

This article examines the meaning, operation, and outcomes of education and related formation of feminist identity development within an Afghan women's humanitarian and political organization. Qualitative data, including 110 interviews, archival review, and participant observations, were collected using a feminist, community, strengths-based approach and were re-analyzed here with a focus on educational processes. Findings revealed multiple educational mechanisms, both similar to and different from many Western assumptions. Within these educational mechanisms, themes of critical consciousness and feminist identity also arose. Outcomes were mapped against Downing and Roush's (1985) feminist identity development model. Similarities, differences, limitations, and lessons in the application of a Western model to an Afghan context are discussed. Findings have implications for understanding indigenous educational methods, the development of critical consciousness and feminist identity in global perspective, and cross-cultural, feminist, community psychology research and application. (C) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The underrepresentation of women in technical fields is a widely acknowledged national problem, limiting both the raw size of the talent pool and the diversity of experiences and perspectives of those who will design solutions to key problems facing society. Empowering women to succeed in these fields is clearly one important component of any solution. Because the population in those fields will likely continue to be overwhelmingly male for some time to come, men must also be a key component of the solution. Specifically, since the attitudes of the majority group are a strong determinant of climate, it is almost equally important to foster a population of men supportive of increasing the representation of women. As at most universities and technical companies, women are a minority in all majors in the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT). In most majors, they are a small minority. The UMBC Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) is dedicated to increasing the representation of women in engineering and information technology fields. At the heart of these efforts is the CWIT Scholar Program, a selective merit scholarship program for undergraduates majoring in engineering and IT who are committed to increasing the representation of women in those fields. In addition to financial support, the CWIT Scholar Program provides a supportive community, academic and professional development programming, networking opportunities, and a residential Living Learning Community. Almost from the beginning, some CWIT scholars have been men. 28 percent of current CWIT scholars are men. Perhaps not surprisingly, female CWIT scholars have dramatically higher retention and completion rates than other women majoring in these fields. In this article, we look at a second effect of the CWIT Scholar Program, that of changing awareness and attitudes of the men who participate. We discuss programs and present results of a survey of attitudes regarding technical, academic, and gender issues in engineering and IT education. We disaggregate survey participants to show differences between the attitudes of women, scholar men, and men not participating in a diversity program.

This paper examines individual and organizational resilience processes among members of The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, (RAWA), an Afghan women's underground resistance organization located in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since 1977, RAWA has used humanitarian and political means to educate, serve, and motivate women and to advocate for peace, secular democracy, and human rights. The authors analyzed 110 qualitative interviews, collected in Pakistan and Afghanistan between December 2001 and July 2002. An iterative coding framework identified processes of resilience and domain specific stressors (risks) and resources (protective factors) at the individual and organizational level. Further analysis found that these process codes clustered by function into components of an operational model of individual and organizational resilience. While individual and organizational resilience are described by the same model, these two levels of resilience were found to operate in synergy as well as in conflict. Although this paper explores a unique setting, we argue that a better understanding of resilience processes in general will come from increased attention to context.

L'articolo esplora i limiti dell'nei contesti caratterizzati da estreme, pericolose e persistenti diseguaglianze di potere. Il contesto indagato č quello di cui hanno fatto esperienza negli ultimi 30 anni i membri e i sostenitori di un'organizzazione femminile clandestina afghana dedita a scopi umanitari e politici. Benché l'sia considerato un principio guida per la psicologia di comunità, questo lavoro sostiene che in setting dove č quasi impossibile per una sub-comunità ottenere risorse, accesso, padronanza e controllo su se stessa e gli altri, l'puň essere un obiettivo irrealistico e ingannevole. In alternativa, le autrici propongono il concetto di resilienza, operazionalizzato come un processo radicato nella cultura e multilivello che porta a processi e risultati di qualità superiore in situazioni di perdurante difficoltà. La resilienza multilivello si occupa dei successi raggiunti malgrado il verificarsi di estreme diseguaglianze. Il concetto di resilienza, centrato sulla resistenza, la perseveranza, gli obiettivi e gli approcci locali, e i contesti sovra e sottoordinati di rischi e fattori protettivi, č in sintonia con i valori e i principi della psicologia di comunità.