Transforming community psychology.

Community psychology has made great strides in including context when understanding people in their environments. While continuing to consider context, we need to expand our conceptualization of the individual in community settings. I propose 3 principles: (1) focus our research on people, not programs; (2) consider multiple dimensions of people's experience; and (3) conceptualize people as agentic and not simply as reactors to the environmental press. I illustrate those principles with research on domestic violence and welfare reform. In doing so, I call attention both to the way in which aspects of people's lives intersect with community settings, and to the embeddedness of people's lives (and community settings) in larger social structures.

Measuring interference with employment and education reported by women with abusive partners: preliminary data.

This study examines the reliability and convergent validity of the Work/School Abuse Scale (W/SAS), a measure of the ways that abusive men interfere with women's participation in education and employment. Results indicate good reliability as measured by coefficient alpha and significant correlations with both a revised version of the Conflict Tactics Scale and the Psychological Abuse Index. The W/SAS is a useful measure of the ways in which physical force and other means of interfering with women's lives isolate them from activities that might provide income, social contacts, and a sense of accomplishment. It may also be used to examine whether changes in welfare policies affect levels of physical force and nonviolent interference in women's employment and education, as suggested by the Family Violence Option to the 1996 revisions in federal welfare policies.

The impact of welfare reform on men's violence against women.

Welfare reform is likely to have a profound effect on the lives of poor women who are being abused. This article proposes exchange theory and the feminist "backlash hypothesis" as frameworks with which to assess the impact of welfare reform on violence levels in abusive relationships. Exchange theory suggests that if a woman leaves welfare and obtains employment that increases her economic resources, violence against her will decrease. The backlash hypothesis makes a different prediction: Violence will increase as men attempt to compensate for women's enhanced status or independence. Both approaches are examined in light of current data. As demonstrated here, the incorporation into social policy analyses of feminist thinking about dominance and power will enrich our understanding of the impact of social policy changes on people.

Hospitalization and the composition of mental patients' social networks.

Social networks of 310 chronically mentally ill patients in Chicago-area State mental hospitals were examined to assess the relationship between the number of hospitalizations and network size and composition. As the number and length of admissions increases, although network size remains stable, there are fewer relatives and friends in the network. The networks of patients with frequent admissions are composed primarily of people met through the mental health system and those known for a short time. These differences are neither related to diagnosis nor to severity of mental illness. The results suggest that the process of hospitalization is related to patients' sources of social support. Implications for readmissions are discussed.

The meaning of community in community mental health.

This article critically reviews the development of community mental health in both theory and practice and explores new directions and dilemmas for future policy and programs. First, we trace the dialectical development of the ideology of community mental health and the rediscovery of community. Second, we outline the two key transitions: (a) from professionals to natural helpers and (b) from catchment areas to natural networks. Third, we offer alternative conceptions of community from the sociological literature and suggest ways that these can benefit new program planning. We conclude with a series of policy questions that legitimate the expansion of community mental health beyond the parochial confines of the local community.

Coping with urban crime: women's use of precautionary behaviors.

This investigation examines the impact of three sets of variables, neighborhood conditions, psychological factors, and life circumstances, on women's use of behaviors designed to protect themselves from criminal victimization. Participants in the study were 299 women living in Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. Two types of precautionary behaviors were identified: avoiding dangerous situations (e.g., by not going out alone at night) and managing risks in the face of possible danger (e.g., by asking repairmen for identification). The three sets of variables were better able to predict avoidance than risk-management behavior. Commonality analyses revealed that psychological factors uniquely accounted for the largest proportion of the variance in the use of both types of precautions. In multiple regression analyses, fear, perceived physical competence, race, and education were significant predictors of avoidance, while fear and perceptions of local social disorder had significant regression effects on risk-management. Implications of the results for research and social policies regarding the impact of crime on communities are discussed, and this area is suggested as a rich context for the exploration of styles of coping with environmental stressors.