Student Community engagement, communities of practice and Community Psychology

1
Student -Community engagement, communities of
practice and Community Psychology

• Rebecca Lawthom and Michael Richards,
• Social Change and Well Being Centre, Research
  Institute for Health and Social Change
• Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester UK

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Communities of practice means

• Knowing becomes situated in social resources
• Learning is situated in forms of social
  co-participation
• A different concept of identity or learning
  around activity and participation
• Engaging with asymmetric forms of
  co-participation (as in CP)

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COPS are social relations

• Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (1999) define a COP as
  an aggregated of people, who united by a common
  enterprise, develop and share ways of doing
  things, ways of talking, beliefs and values in
  short, practices (p.186)
• COPS are essentially about language,
  communication and learning.
• Participants make meaning of this joint
  enterprise and of themselves in relation to this
  enterprise.

4
COP gives a perspective on how learning happens

• Individuals engage in multiple communities of
  practice, as core members, peripheral or
  apprentices.
• Engagements in social groupings result in the
  acquisition of cultural knowledge i.e. the
  practices (behaviours and actions of local
  communities of practice)
• How ? through legitimate peripheral
  participation

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Legitimate peripheral participation

• Learning is embedded in the social (material and
  social relations) the practices
• Legitimate participation indicates that the
  learner is entitled and contributes to respective
  COP
• Peripheral suggests participation is a collective
  effort more engagement is more than mastery, it
  is about belonging.
• COP refers to human and non-human features thus
  settings, buildings and locations are socially
  meaningful aspects of practice.

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Learning becoming and belonging

• Lee and Roth (2003,p.2)
• it is a constant process of becoming and
  belonging to a community that is itself becoming
  and belonging to practitioners
• And
• This way of articulating learning seeks to
  decenter mastery and domination of others in
  favour of a description that focuses on an
  increasing entanglement in the relations that
  constitute a community of practice (p.4)

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Knowledge acquisition and community psychology

• Community Psychology is concerned with
• Values which underpin marginalisation and
  oppression
• Social justice access to knowledge
• Power who has access to rights
• Working with in a community not ON
• Valuing others respecting knowledge
• Action and change and learning sustainability
  and long term development

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COP with Community Psychology students and
partners

• Much synergy between these two
• Communities of practice very interested in
  learning in practice not didactic structuring in
  assymetric learning settings.
• Learning is therefore about access to settings
  (practice settings) where the curriculum may be
  the social setting.
• Students learning to do community psychology as
  part of a CP course (a counter-hegemonic bloc
  within psychology curriculum)
• Psychology students here encouraged not to do
  research on people but research with community
  members.
• Tutors, community members and students are all
  part of a community of practice

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Using a case study to understand partnership

• Case study here of a Community project undertaken
  last year
• This successful student liaised with a community
  group
• Michael Richards and the Wiseguys project

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Community Psychology Student to Community
Psychologist.

• Undergraduate Community Psychology.
• Young Peoples Support Foundation (YPSF).
• Volunteer completion of report.
• Sex and Relationship Advice Worker with boys and
  young men aged 13 to 25 years.
• Deliver sessions on sexual health and related
  issues. Also take part in events, forums and
  training sessions.
• Advice work which involves work on homelessness,
  benefit advice, mental health and drugs/alcohol.

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Wyseguys (Wy Wythenshawe)

• Tackles problems associated with masculinity
  including poor health (mental and physical),
  unemployment, crime, sexuality and education.
• Safe space for young men.
• Health calendar for young men.
• Alcohol play and workshops.

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Session Development.

• 4 main areas
• Women similarities and differences.
• Fatherhood good and bad, ideal dad.
• Relationships different sexualities.
• Contraception and Sexually transmitted diseases.
• Also cover mental health, alcohol and drugs and
  present issues in their lives.

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Action Research and my work.

• Empower young men have a voice.
• Collaborate in making decisions on content of
  sessions.
• Inclusion at all levels of ability through
  relationship building.
• Respecting and promoting diversity.
• - Working with young men and not on them.
• Through evaluation tools e.g. quizzes, they have
  demonstrated learning from session.
• Sustainability more funds and time needed to
  take to next level.

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Apprentices (i.e. the students) and the learning
curriculum

• Teaching curriculum ostensibly structured by
  tutors learning outcomes etc
• Learning curriculum structured by members
  simply participation in an activity system
• Students as apprentices and legitimate peripheral
  participants
• Community members core participators
• Learning and identity are entwined.

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Tutors and community members reflections

• Tutors need to manage twin curricular demands in
  a dynamic environment
• Members of community attended presentations
  ensuring clarity of voice and responsibility
  around marginalisation
• Community members steered process (as core
  members) and sometimes transformed university
  COP.

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What does this example give us ?

• Community engagement managed and credited.
  Academic boundaries extended beyond the campus
• Community Psychology- based on action research
  principles- different ways of learning and
  teaching (pedagogy)
• Communities of practice as a useful framework to
  understand community and university partnerships