Following the Republic of Uzbekistan's socioeconomic independence, dramatic changes in society occurred. Despite the fact that this time in the personality society was brief, it opened the ground for a major transition in the Republic's social, political, and psychological existence. In this regard, research into the psychology of the victim as a result of violations in the country's life was also undertaken.
This provocation reimagines the dominant indigenisation discourse of psychology in South Africa, which conceives the process of "decolonizing" as equivalent to "Africanizing". I argue that some African psychologists' indefatigable insistence on narrow localism and ethno-theorising, is a cowardly defeatism and an accessory to domination. The in toto refusals of Western psychology, are themselves ahistorical and totally ignorant of the historicity and historical anteriority of Africa in science. Western knowledge is neither monolithic, nor the sole property and prerogative of the West. Africa has significantly contributed to its creation and should admissibly make foundational claims on it. I gesture at a different decolonial ethics, grounded on the Dusselian transmodernity, pluriversalism and ethical universalism, to negotiate the incongruous obscure particularism of some African psychologists, and also disabuse modernist psychology of its false universalisms. The paper reads ultra-essentialist responses to modernism as still being intrinsically Eurocentric, in that they have rather ironically continued to reinforce the process of "Othering" and negating through their fixation with identity politics and cultural reductionism. ; http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_serial&pid=1015-6046&lng=en&nrm=iso ; am2017 ; Psychology
An article published in : Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice; vol.3, no. 4, Dec. 2012, pp. 71-72 ; In this presentation I explore and discuss the importance and relevance of community psychology as a paradigm in understanding the dialectics of oppression and mental health in occupied Palestine, specifically in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. I survey key historical turning points in the Palestinian context and advance an argument for a critical and liberating community psychology. I end by presenting a program of community psychology we are in the process of developing at Birzeit University. Rather than presenting another review of the international development of community psychology, for the purpose of understanding the specific context of Palestine it is suffice to state that community psychology as praxis involves the scientific study of people within their particular socio-political environment while using this knowledge to help improve the mental health of individuals, groups and communities (Orford, 1992). Community psychology, as a sub-discipline within psychology, emerged when critical psychologists realized that the genesis of mental health disorders among members of the oppressed and marginalized communities are rooted in the objective conditions of oppression, discrimination, injustice and social deprivation within their social environment. Similar to Paulo Freire's (1970) pedagogy of the oppressed and liberation education, community psychology may as well be perceived as the psychology of liberation of the oppressed. The Latin American model of liberation social psychology (Burton, 2004) provides an ideal framework to understanding and arguing for the necessity of critical community psychology in occupied Palestine. In 1948, the state of Israel was established consequential to an ethnic cleansing campaign leading to the mass explosion of more than two thirds of the indigenous Palestinian population, leaving a fragile minority behind (Morris, 1989). In 1967 the remaining of historical Palestine, namely the West Bank and Gaza Strip, were occupied by the Israeli invading army. Since 1967 the two populations of Palestinians in historic Palestine have been divided by the virtual "green line" living under two contradictory political conditions; one group as formal Israeli citizens and one under military occupation. Palestinian refugees in exile account for the remaining half of the Palestinian people and they are about five million today spread between refugee camps in neighboring Arab countered and in the west. In this paper we discuss community psychology and mental health among the Palestinian population in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. During the first two decades of resisting occupation, the Palestinian people in the West Bank and community level committees, including student unions, women groups, labor unions and a wide variety of professional organizations. In the foundation of this sense of community and collective responsibility was a spectacular drive for volunteerism and contribution to the public good and the national cause. When the first Intifada erupted in 1987, it was these grassroots organizations and community groups that carried out and sustained the struggle and provided the needed social and psychological support to victims of political violence.
In: Community Psychology in Global Perspective; Vol 5, No 1 (2019): Community Psychology in Global Perspective - Special Issue: Emerging challenges of European Community Psychology; 107-118 ; Community psychology in global perspective. Interculture, well-being and social change; Vol 5, No 1 (2019): Community Psychology in Global Perspective - Special Issue: Emerging challenges of European Community Psychology; 107-118
The full costs of armed conflict are enormous and total world military expenditure is huge. Psychological theories and concepts to explain support for war and militarism at individual and group levels include: warfare as a masculine institution; social identity theory; nationalist versus internationalist attitudes; and the contact hypothesis. At a collective level militarism is legitimised. War and deadly weapons are portrayed in positive and unrealistic ways. Support for militarism permeates civic society and citizens are 'cognitively disarmed' about it and the role they play in supporting it. Psychologists have promoting militarism by working for the military and the changing nature of war and armaments, such as the use of drones, is providing further temptations to do so. Psychology has at best been ambivalent about militarism. Peace psychology has not taken an unambiguous position on it, often speaking of the absence of war in the absence of social justice as 'negative peace'. The British Psychological Society is failing to recognise and oppose militarism. Community psychology should take a lead in arguing for a more clearly identified Psychology Against Militarism (PAM).
In a democratic society, law is an important means to express, manipulate, and enforce moral codes. Demonstrating empirically that law can achieve moral goals is difficult. Nevertheless, public interest groups spend considerable energy and resources to change the law with the goal of changing not only morally-laden behaviors, but also morally-laden cognitions and emotions. Additionally, even when there is little reason to believe that a change in law will lead to changes in behavior or attitudes, groups see the law as a form of moral capital that they wish to own, to make a statement about society. Examples include gay sodomy laws, abortion laws, and Prohibition. In this Chapter, we explore the possible mechanisms by which law can influence attitudes and behavior. To this end, we consider informational and group influence of law on attitudes, as well as the effects of salience, coordination, and social meaning on behavior, and the behavioral backlash that can result from a mismatch between law and community attitudes. Finally, we describe two lines of psychological research—symbolic politics and group identity— that can help explain how people use the law, or the legal system, to effect expressive goals.
The development and spiritual potential of a democratic society largely depends on the content of psychological and educational education provided to these children. As each child lives in a society, he or she strives to have a unique place and an independent position in it, so he or she demonstrates unique aspirations, abilities and activism, examples of intellectual labor. There are a number of pedagogical disciplines that study the interactions between children and the role of each individual in society and the nature of his or her different social relationships, among which psychology has a special place.
In: Community Psychology in Global Perspective; Vol 3, No 2 (2017): Community Psychology in Global Perspective; 72-88 ; Community psychology in global perspective. Interculture, well-being and social change; Vol 3, No 2 (2017): Community Psychology in Global Perspective; 72-88
The 6th International Conference on Community Psychology was held in the city of Durban in South Africa in 2016. The conference theme 'Global Dialogues on Critical Knowledges, Liberation and Community' reflected the country's current political struggle for transformation and the connection to issues of social and economic inequality internationally. Guided by storytelling as a methodology, this paper draws on individual reflections of delegates from NAME University to explore the implications of the conference for us individually and collective in terms of teaching, research and action. We organise our collective reflections on our conference experience around two themes: the constraints and challenges of psychology teaching and training, and the value and challenges associated with critical and contextualised approaches to community psychologies. Drawing on these reflections, the implications for teaching, research and practice is discussed as well as the importance of forging spaces for networking, support for contextualised approaches to community psychology.
Since the university education of psychologists began in Spain in 1954, the history of psychology course has been included in the curriculum. In the first few years, only half of the curricula offered the course. From 1973 to 2007, the universities' organization and regulation underwent successive reforms that involved changes in the curricula, decreeing specific national guidelines for each degree and establishing a minimum set of common required courses, called core courses, including the history of psychology. In 2007, the European Higher Education Area was set up, transforming the 5-year bachelor's degrees into 4-year degrees and eliminating the required guidelines, with each university being able to define the content of their curricula. The Dean's Conference for Psychology agreed on some recommendations related to core courses, which continued to include the history of psychology and were adopted by the majority of the universities. In 2015, the government established a new national regulation that makes it possible for each university to voluntarily reduce the length of the bachelor's degree to 3 years. Some psychology historians believe that this hypothetical reduction in the length of the degree, along with the already existing general tendency to prioritize applied or practical courses over basic or fundamental ones, could produce an appropriate scenario for the disappearance of the history of psychology course in some universities
Res-Publica : Revista Lusófona de Ciência Política e Relações Internacionais ; Em consequência da globalização e dos actuais conflitos mundiais, milhares de pessoas deixaram a sua pátria para viver durante alguns anos noutros países, frequentemente junto dos seus familiares. Alguns partem pela sua própria vontade, porque trabalham para o seu Governo, para as suas empresas ou para uma organização internacional, porque querem estudar no estrangeiro ou simplesmente porque procuram um emprego e uma vida melhor. Outros, normalmente num contexto violento, são forçados a partir e apenas procuram paz e apoio. Este artigo apresenta um panorama das contribuições da Psicologia para as relações internacionais (RI). Propõe cinco tipos de actores de RI: diplomatas(incluindo pessoal consular e administrativo), voluntários internacionais (ONG e participantes em missões de paz), expatriados (incluindo estudantes), migrantes (documentados e não documentados) e refugiados. Define as suas tarefas (e/ou necessidades) e os problemas inerentes, também para a família. Depois, trata as seguintes áreas de pesquisa que podem ajudar os actores a realizar as suas tarefas e resolver os seus problemas: análise de acontecimentos políticos, análise de conflitos; resolução e prevenção; negociação e mediação; tomada de decisão, análise da linguagem, análise de factores culturais,operações de peacekeeping & desenvolvimento da paz pós-conflito, saúde mental, e know- -how e gestão organizacional. É feita uma breve consideração sobre cada área, enfatizando assuntos práticos. ; As a consequence of globalization and current world conflicts, thousands of people leave their homeland, to live some years in other countries, often together with their families. Some leave on their own decision, because they work for their Government, for their enterprise or for an international organization, because they want to study abroad or simply because they are looking for a job and a better life. Other persons are forced to leave, usually in a violent context, and they just look for peace and relief. This paper presents a panorama of the contributions of Psychology to the international relations (IR). It proposes five types of actors of IR: diplomats (including consular and administration personnel), international volunteers (NGOs and participants in peace missions), expatriates (including students), migrants (documented and undocumented) and refugees. It defines their tasks (and/or the needs) and the inherent problems, also for the family. Then, it reviews the following research fields, that can help the actors to accomplish their tasks and to resolve their problems: analysis of political events; conflict analysis, resolution & prevention; negotiation & mediation; decision making, analysis of language, analysis of cultural factors, peacekeeping & post conflict peace building, mental health, and organizational & management know-how. A brief account of each field is made, emphasizing practical issues".
International audience This review surveys recent research developed in behavioral economics on the determinants of unethical behavior. Most recent progress has been made in three directions: the understanding of the importance of moral norms in individual decision-making, the conflicting role of opportunities provided by asymmetries of information and social preferences, and the crucial effect of rules, occupational norms and incentive schemes in the diffusion of dishonesty. The connection between economics and psychology is the most vivid on the first dimension.
The main argument of this paper is informed by the realization that, despite its significance as critical alternative to colonial psychology, out of all branches of academic Western mainstream psychology taught in Arab and Palestinian universities, community psychology as a sub-discipline is noticeably marginalized and under-recognized. Community psychology has a formative quality and the potential to make contributions to the emancipation and liberation of marginalized communities, as opposed to many problematic forms of historical and contemporary enactments of mainstream colonial psychology in the Arab World (Makkawi 2009; Soueif and Ahmed 2001). Following a historical trend in postcolonial situations, universities in the Arab World continue to import and uncritically apply Western constructions of knowledge, including psychology, and the intellectual legacy of European colonialism continues to dominate these academic institutions (Abouchedid 2006). This intellectual hegemony of colonial knowledge in Arab universities renders the enactment of critical psychology in general and community psychology in particular – both in academe and in community settings – a challenging undertaking. In this paper, I draw upon an emerging program of critical community psychology at Birzeit University in Palestine, arguing that envisioning critical psychology in the Arab World in general is better conceived through critical community psychology as an emerging alternative to colonial psychology. There is no formally recorded history of the inception of community psychology in Palestine. However, early manifestations of community psychology in the Palestinian colonial context can be traced back to various phases of community grassroots organizing and action during the anti-colonial struggle for self-determination. The vision and praxis of the newly established master's program in community psychology at Birzeit University evolved from and were inspired by earlier forms of community grassroots action during the first Palestinian Intifada in the occupied West Bank and Gaza (WBG) in 1987. While this paper highlights the recently developed master's program in community psychology as an exemplar of critical psychology in the Arab World, I focus on the roots of community psychology in the Palestinian community long before its formal academic inception. I start by describing the colonial condition in Palestine with particular attention to the occupied WBG, where this specific case of community psychology enactment is being implemented. The focus is placed on academic psychology and the legacy of colonial knowledge inherited
Sebagai sebuah ilmu yang cukup dinamis perkembangannya, eksistensi psikologi dan konseling memberikan andil yang besar dalam mendeskripsikan suatu keadaan dan kejadian yang seringkali dialami oleh manusia pada kasuskasus yang berhubungan dengan banyak disiplin: hukum, pendidikan, sosial kemasyarakatan, politik bahkan agama.
[Extract] Media development in Singapore: The media of Singapore play an important role in Singapore, one of the key strategic media centres in the Asia-Pacific region. This is in line with the government's aggressive push to establish Singapore as a media hub in the world under the Media 21 plan launched in 2002. Comprising the publishing, print, broadcasting, film, music, digital, and IT media sectors Collectively employed about 38,000 people and contributed 1.56% to Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001 with an annual turnover of S$10 billion. The industry grew at an average rate of 7.7% annually from 1990 to 2000, and the government seeks to increase its GDP contribution to 3% by 2012. The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts is the government's regulatory body that imposes and enforces regulation over locally produced media content. It also decides on the availability of published media from abroad. In 2012/13, Reporters Without Borders ranked Singapore 149 out of 179 countries in the Press Freedom Index, making it the worst country among other developed economies based on the Human Development Index, moving down 14 places from the 2011/2012 ranking. Most of the local media are directly or indirectly controlled by the government through shareholdings of these media entities by the state's investment arm Temasek Holdings, and are often perceived as pro-government.
An article published in : The Australian Community Psychologist, vol. 24, no. 2, November 2012, pp. 135-142 ; At first sight there appear to be, internationally, many diverse, radical, manifestations of community psychology. However, community psychology has gradually become decreasingly diverse and decreasingly radical the more it has become academically and professionally established and evangelised and it is now endangered as a critical alternative to the disciplinary ideologies, theories, procedures and practices of mainstream psychology. As a consequence, the interests of people whose lives are most characterised by immiseration, suffering, social injustice and oppression are increasingly blighted and increasingly threatened. However, these reactionary developments were and are not inevitable and can be reversed by those collectively committed to community critical psychologyIn this paper, despite many differences in our constituting contexts, approaches and work, we come together in solidarity as community critical psychologists to emphasise our common commitment to the development and enactment of community critical psychologies, and our common opposition to the dominant community (acritical) psychologies. The ordering of terms is significant here. We are committed to the wider spectrum of critical psychologies which expose and contest community injustice and misery rather than to the subset of community psychologies which are critical in standpoint. We are critical in relation to oppressive and unjust societal arrangements but also critical in relation to community psychologies, and other manifestations of 'psy', which collude with or actually construct and maintain oppression and injustice. Although the concept of community is central to community critical psychology, it is remarkable how seldom and howsuperficially the notion of community has been subjected to critical – that is, historical, political and ideological – critique by community psychologists who use the term (Fryer & Laing, 2008; Kagan, Burton, Duckett, Lawthom, & Siddiquee, 2011). In dominant discourses, community is usually positioned either as a 'safe', 'warm', and 'friendly' 'place' or as one which is marginal, amoral, anomic, foreboding, forbidding and frightening. Because the uncritical construction of community can lead to a justification for processes of 'othering', exclusion and apartheid-construction through boundary drawinge
The increasing presence of and claim for dialogue in today"s society has already had an impact on the theory and practice of learning. Whereas in the past individual and cognitive elements were seen as crucial to learning, since about two decades ago, scientific literature indicates that culture, interaction and dialogue are the key factors. In addition, the research project of highest scientific rank and with most resources dedicated to the study of school education in the Framework Program of the European Union: INCLUD-ED shows that the practices of successful schools around Europe are in line with the dialogic approach to learning. This article presents the dialogic turn in educational psychology, consisting of moving from symbolic conceptions of mind and internalist perspectives that focus on mental schemata of previous knowledge, to theories that see intersubjectivity and communication as the primary factors in learning. The paper deepens on the second approach.