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ERIC Number: EJ958270
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2007-Aug
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0090-4392
EISSN: N/A
Social Action with Youth: Interventions, Evaluation, and Psychopolitical Validity
Morsillo, Julie; Prilleltensky, Isaac
Journal of Community Psychology, v35 n6 p725-740 Aug 2007
We describe two interventions designed to encourage community action with youth in a school and a community service setting. The school intervention took place with a Year 10 class, while the community-based intervention took place with a group of same-sex attracted youth. Using a participatory action research framework, youth in both settings devised a series of community projects to promote personal, group, and community wellness. Projects included drama presentations addressing homophobia, designing an aboriginal public garden, children's activities in a cultural festival for refugees, a drug-free underage dance party, a community theatre group, and a student battle of the bands. We evaluated the various community projects using self-reports, videotapes, and ethnographic data. While goals of personal and group wellness were meaningfully met, wellness at the community level was harder to achieve. Introducing a tool for the evaluation of psychopolitical validity, we examined the degree of both epistemic and transformational validity present in the interventions. Our assessment indicates that (a) psychological changes are easier to achieve than political transformations, (b) epistemic validity is easier to accomplish than transformational validity, and (c) changes at the personal and group levels are easier to achieve than changes at the community level. (Contains 3 tables.)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A