Content and method trends in the Journal of Community Psychology between 2003 and 2007

Abstract

Ongoing inquiry into the characteristics of published work and its synergy with community psychology's core principles is an important reflexive endeavour in the field's continuing development. This study examined topic and method trends within the Journal of Community Psychology during a 5‐year period (January 2003–December 2007). Content analyses were conducted on published abstracts during this period (N=242). Most articles were empirical studies (61.2%) and most used a positivist methodology (53.7%). Samples mainly comprised adults and were mixed in terms of gender and ethnic/religious affiliation. The most frequent topics were mental health and mental illness (33.5%), sense of community and social support (24.4%), and dynamics of social exclusion (22.7%). A large proportion of special issues was also noted. These results illustrate contemporary trends in community psychology and suggest that critical and participatory methods as well as socially transformative epistemologies continue to be under‐represented within the field. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Quality of Life and Sense of Community. A Study on Health and Place of Residence

“…In our opinion, connecting studies on sense of community, environmental characteristics, and quality of life that go beyond a perspective focused on disease and pathology could be very fruitful. “If mental health continues to be the desired goal, then the ultimate focus of community psychology continues to lie within the individual; and this runs contrary to models that focus on community well‐being” (Graham & Ismail, , p. 132). Furthermore, this perspective could be of great interest for policy makers in the field of social and health service management, because if it is clear that quality and style of life differ according to the characteristics and dimensions of the environment, this could affect the organization of health and social services, so that health policies can be tailored to specific needs and life situations.…”

Trends in Youth Development Research Topics: An Integrative Review of Positive Youth Development Research Published in Selected Journals Between 2001-2010

“…Both deductive and inductive coding schemas were used in the process of categorizing articles (Graham & Ismail, 2011). For example, deductive coding was used to categorize publication type, methodologies employed, and population characteristics.…”

“…The research team then categorized their assigned manuscripts based on the topical area/s that best represented the research. A nonexclusive categorization system was used to capture the breadth and scope of the research focus, so manuscripts were often placed into more than one topical area (Bocarro, Greenwood, & Henderson, 2008;Graham & Ismail, 2011). Population Characteristics Table 1 includes the breakdowns of the population characteristics identified in this review.…”

“…For example, such approaches have been used to understand the experiences of immigrant and ethnic minority children (Guiberson, 2009;Stodolska, 2008;Telzer, 2011), adolescent peer experiences (Kingery, Erdley, Marshall, Whitaker, & Reuter, 2010), emotional regulation (Chambers, Gullone, & Allen, 2009), sports coaching (McCullick et al, 2009), and family resiliency (Benzies & Mychasiuk, 2009). Integrative reviews have been undertaken to understand trends in topical content and methods, such as Graham and Ismail's (2011) study conducted in the field of community psychology. Of particular interest to this study is Bocarro, Greenwood, and Henderson's (2008) integrative review on youth development and recreation.…”

“…Because journal articles are indicators of the patterns of thinking that help to define specific fields, it makes sense that scholars and practitioners would be interested in the aggregated body of knowledge that helps to define a particular disciplinary domain (Graham & Ismail, 2011). As the field of youth development has matured, a case can be made that it is time to look more systematically at the research efforts in the field.…”