Hamerton, H., Nikora, L.W., Robertson, N. and Thomas, D. (1995). Community Psychology in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The Community Psychologist, 28(3), 21-23. [1]
Community Psychology in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Heather Hamerton, Linda Waimarie Nikora, Neville Robertson and David Thomas University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.
Brief history of Community Psychology in Aotearoa/New Zealand
To understand the history of community psychology in Aotearoa (the original name for this land), it is necessary to understand the historical and cultural context in which it has developed.
New Zealand is a parliamentary democracy based on the Westminster system. Until recently, an agricultural-based economy provided near full employment. This and a comprehensive public welfare system meant New Zealanders enjoyed a high standard of living. Since the mid-1980's, right-wing economic and social policies have ended state intervention in the economy and substantially reduced government-funded welfare measures.
The dominant ethnic group are Pakeha (white New Zealanders of mainly British descent). As is the case in many other former colonies, the indigenous Māori people fight to be self-determining in an environment of Pakeha domination.
In 1840, Māori representatives, negotiating from a position of relative strength, signed a treaty with the British Crown, which guaranteed Māori sovereignty. However, during the subsequent 150 years, the Treaty of Waitangi has been breached repeatedly. British governors assumed executive power. War; land confiscation; legislative controls on the use of land, fisheries and cultural practices; the exercise of economic power; and the establishment of a land-holder democracy all helped the settler society establish dominance. Urbanisation and assimilationist policies have further damaged Māori society. Today, Māori comprise approximately 12% of the population, control less than 5% of the land and struggle to retain important cultural practices despite a significant cultural renaissance over the past 20 years.
Within this post-colonial context, psychology developed as a distinct discipline within a university system modelled on that of Britain. In more recent years, American-derived theories and approaches have come to dominate the psychological curriculum of the six universities which offer psychology. A partial exception to this pattern has been the University of Waikato, where relevance to the regional and national context has been a major emphasis in the teaching and research of the Psychology Department. Through-out its 28-year history, the department has included courses in cross-cultural and social psychology in its curriculum, and applied research focusing on local concerns has been an important element of its research programme. In contrast to some other universities, the community psychology programme at Waikato developed out of applied social psychology rather than clinical psychology. Other universities in Aotearoa now offer courses in community psychology but Waikato remains the only one to offer a full training programme.
Theoretical, cultural and political influences
Community psychology at Waikato University rests on a rejection of the basic assumptions of positivist science: that science is value-free and that there is an objective truth which can be uncovered by rigorous scientific research. Rather we acknowledge that our views of the world are inevitably shaped by our various histories, ethnicities, genders, and social classes. Our practice of psychology is founded in an acceptance and affirmation of this multiplicity of realities and perspectives, and in the knowledge that all our actions as both psychologists and as members the community are inevitably shaped by our differing values and beliefs. (For a review of some of these ideas, see Gergen, 1992).
Within the social and political context outlined above, honouring the Treaty of Waitangi has wide reaching implications for all New Zealanders, and community psychology has actively attempted to promote and support a number of initiatives towards greater power equity for Māori and an acknowledgement of our diverse cultural and ethnic heritage.
It is necessary to recognise also the power relations within which we operate. Within a right-wing country governed by (mostly) middle-class white men certain groups have far greater access to power than others, and certain views are privileged, and accorded higher status. Community psychology as a discipline founded within the mainstream academy (and psychology in particular) has had to struggle to gain acceptance since it rejects the dominant paradigm of mainstream psychology (positivism) and has favoured qualitative research methods over quantitative. Nevertheless it needs to continue to use its position of relative privilege, within universities and society at large, to enhance community well-being through collaborative working relationships with grass-roots community organisers. Although more Māori are entering universities, they remain under-represented, especially among staff and graduate students.
Community psychologists in Aotearoa have typically taught from a perspective of empowerment, equality, cultural pluralism and social justice. Given the position of community psychology in mainstream universities, such an approach is insufficient by itself to bring about extensive social change to enhance the well-being of powerless groups within the New Zealand context. We have done fairly well at promoting empowerment and working with community groups to evaluate and improve their services, but we still need to address more directly the redistribution of resources in a genuinely equitable fashion. Realising this, we have looked towards the Treaty of Waitangi to inform, shape and interpret those fundamental values and approaches typical of community psychology.
We have found the Treaty of Waitangi, with its emphasis on the fundamental right of peoples to self-determination, and on values of active protection, participation, partnership, and reciprocal obligations, to provide an effective framework for moderating and managing power and for guiding the practice of community psychology in Aotearoa. The result has been a small step towards "localising" community psychology in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
The community psychology programme at Waikato University attracts many more women than men students. An explicit agenda in recent years has been to increase the focus on issues in the community relevant to women's lives and experience. Having feminist psychologists on the community psychology staff team has facilitated a more participatory and egalitarian approach to learning and supervision, and wider opportunities for students to undertake coursework and research on feminist topics which affect them personally, and which have led to social action. Research topics have included: teenage pregnancy, mothers in prison, women and depression, empowerment in childbirth, women's unpaid work, and health issues for young lesbian women.
Another important feature has been the community of women in psychology who have met regularly both locally in Hamilton, and together with other women from both Aotearoa and Australia. The ongoing networking and support available to women within this group has crossed the usual barriers of status between students and staff, and resulted in frequent (often riotous!) social gatherings. The continuing high enrolment of women students in community psychology courses bear testimony to their popularity and success.
Training in community psychology
Several universities include community psychology in their teaching programmes. The only full community psychology graduate training programme available in Aotearoa is that offered by the University of Waikato. Three other universities offer limited training opportunities.
At the University of Waikato, community psychology is offered within the Masters of Social Science degree (M.Soc.Sci.), as a specialist three-year Diploma (PGDip. Psych (Com)), or as a specialised area of doctoral study (D.Phil). Graduates of the post-graduate Diploma (for which Masters is a co-requisite) are eligible for registration as a psychologist under the statutory licensing system. At the undergraduate level, a year three paper is offered.
Three specific training features are evident in the Waikato programme: an emphasis on skill acquisition (such as evaluation skills) as well as theory, a gradual transition from primarily university-based training to primarily community-based training over the three years of the programmes, and involvement in community organisations leading to job opportunities. Because of the regional visibility of the Waikato programme, students are able to select research and training tasks from requests made by community organisations. These opportunities help ensure that research agendas are set primarily by community needs and the community involvement provides students with valuable practical skills. Graduates from the Waikato programme have typically found employment in health promotion, policy analysis, service planning, applied research (especially programme evaluation) and community development. They have been employed in both government-funded and non-governmental organisations.
At other universities in New Zealand, a course is available within the psychiatry and behavioural sciences programme in the Medical School at the University of Auckland. Massey University offers a third year undergraduate paper in community psychology as part of its options for a major in psychology. Victoria University for a number of years has provided a community orientation to the training of clinical psychologists.
Although a number of American academics have contributed to the development of training in Aotearoa, over the past ten years there has been an emphasis on localisation: the reinterpretation of concepts assumed to be "universal" to fit "local" cultural patterns (Thomas, 1994) and an emphasis on nurturing the development of an indigenous psychology. Thus while exchanges with American psychologists continue, relatively more emphasis has been placed on networking with psychologists in New Zealand and Australia (which shares a similar history of colonisation) and other interested local workers outside the formal discipline of psychology.
Professional organisations
The New Zealand Psychological Society (NZPsS), which began life as a branch of the British Psychological Society, is the principal professional organisation for psychologists in Aotearoa. Although not all community psychologists belong to the NZPsS, those who do are affiliated with the Community and Social Psychology Division of the Society. The NZPsS provides its members with ethical cover, continuing education, advocacy and a forum for academic pursuits. It does not control the licensing of psychologists: that is the responsibility of a statutory body, the Psychologists Board. Relatively few community psychologists are registered (the registration provisions are of more immediate relevance to clinical psychologists). In fact, many of the professionals who identify with community psychology work in roles which do not carry the title "community psychologist" and may owe professional allegiances to other organisations (in the health, social research and evaluation fields).
Projects
Cultural Pluralism, Agenda Setting and Voice Gaining
Considerable effort has been needed to ensure that Māori people as a non-dominant ethnic group gain a voice (Thomas, 1992) within the discipline and organisation of psychology in Aotearoa. Community psychologists have contributed to this effort, along with Māori students and colleagues from other areas in psychology.
Numerous attempts have been made to place the goals of indigenous development on the agenda of the New Zealand Psychological Society. In 1978 Jules Older called for the Society to work to increase the number of Māori psychologists to numbers at least proportional to the percentage of Māori in the general population. The manuscript containing his proposal was by rejected by the editorial board of the New Zealand Journal of Psychology. Almost 10 years later, Max Abbott and Mason Durie (1987) noted the complete lack of Māori graduates from professional psychology programmes in Aotearoa over the previous two years and described psychology as "probably the most monocultural, in terms of Māori representation, of all New Zealand professions." (p. 67). The successful publication of their paper in the New Zealand Journal of Psychology, which had rejected Older's paper in 1978, possibly reflected a change towards a more pluralistic attitude in New Zealand psychology generally. In 1989, the Psychology Department at the University of Waikato appointed its first Māori staff member. Linda Nikora's appointment provided opportunity to challenge from within the monocultural nature of psychology and to promote the goals of indigenous development.
Later that year three staff from the Waikato programme were part of the Social and Community Division of the Society which submitted a remit to the annual general meeting of the Society, re-iterating the challenge posed by Jules Older in 1978 and urging the Society to use its resources to train more Māori psychologists and to alleviate social problems plaguing Māori peoples.
Full membership (and therefore voting rights) of the NZPsS is limited to people with at least a masters degree in psychology. Very few Māori are eligible for membership according to this criterion: others do not belong either because of the expense, because they can see no benefit, or as a form of protest. However, Māori still attend annual conferences, and find it frustrating to observe non-Māori discussion on a remit concerning Māori people! In 1989 members of the Social and Community Division moved that the annual general meeting allow a Māori person the right to speak to the motion being discussed.
However, more than just speaking rights were needed, since a lone voice can be easily squashed by the opposition especially if the speaker is not of the dominant group within that setting. In addition, a Māori person might address an issue and not even be heard whereas a Pakeha professor might say the same thing and the message is accepted without a squeak.
Despite opposition, the remit was accepted and a working party established to advise the Society on its implementation: the Kaupapa [2] Māori Working Party made up primarily of community psychologists. The group viewed their role as collators and presenters of information contributed by Māori, opening the way for Māori to gain voice in decision-making. In 1990 a contingent of Māori people, including staff and students, requested the Society to fund their travel and accommodation to support their paper at the annual general meeting. They also asked that discussion of the Kaupapa Māori Working Party paper be scheduled at the top of the agenda, and that they be accorded speaking and voting rights. In a meeting with the Council the previous night, it was agreed that since voting rights could not conferred on non-members they be allowed to address the annual general meeting only after it moved to suspend its proceedings. In a context where Māori expected to receive a hostile response, the contingent felt that the opportunity to speak to members prior to the voting was better than no opportunity at all. Although the paper was successfully tabled and accepted it was not without substantial opposition and obstructive manipulation of annual general meeting procedures on the part of a conservative minority.
In the above process community psychologists through the Social and Community Division provided access for Māori people and their voice into Society decision-making processes. They also supported the Māori person allocated speaking rights by reiterating his message in the meeting proper. Through collaboration, they found a way for Māori to gain voice and affect the agenda of the Society.
Since 1989, community psychologists have undertaken a number of other activities with regard to cultural pluralism, agenda setting and voice gaining. These have included the establishment of a National Standing Committee of the NZPsS on Bicultural Issues. The Standing Committee monitors the development of bicultural initiatives, organises symposia at annual conferences, disseminates information on issues relevant to indigenous development, and formulated the following new constitutional rule for the NZPsS.
In giving effect to the objects for which the Society is established the Society shall encourage policies and practices that reflect New Zealand's cultural diversity and shall, in particular, have due regard to the provisions of, and to the spirit and intent of the Treaty of Waitangi.
These activities have had some effect. Eight Māori people now fill a variety of positions in three of six university psychology departments with two further positions still unfilled. At least four new courses focused on Māori development have been introduced at three universities, and at Waikato University Māori students constitute about 25% of its first year psychology undergraduate intake. Scholarships are available to students of Māori descent training in clinical psychology, although none are available for community psychology students.
Although Community Psychology has contributed to some of the changes described above, by no means can it be the first to take credit for the changes that have resulted. Credit must in the first instance go to Māori students of psychology and Māori clients of psychological practice for the painful experience of pointing out psychology's inadequacies and demonstrating that there are different, yet valid world views. Neither should community psychology rationalise inaction through a focus on what it already has achieved. Critical examination and reflection is still needed to effect change within our own discipline. When the indigenous people of Aotearoa deem that the goals of indigenous development have been achieved we hope that community psychologists can genuinely claim that they have contributed in some way.
Violence reduction
A continuing series of projects in the programme at Waikato has focused on reduction of violence, especially violence directed against women and children within the domestic sphere. As well as being a major cause of non-accidental death and injury, domestic violence is implicated in other significant problems such as school failure, chemical dependency and teenage runaways. The distinction between the private and public spheres has meant few communities have provided effective protection to women and children within the family. Work at Waikato has included: the piloting of an assertive arrest policy which took the onus off victims to press charges against their abusers (the policy was subsequently adopting nationally); an evaluation of the bicultural development process within a local women's refuge (shelter); a study of breaches of protection orders made against domestic abusers which attracted national attention for its criticisms of judicial attitudes towards victims of abuse (the majority of the recommendations have been incorporated into draft legislation about to be considered by Parliament); evaluations of a Child Abuse Pilot Project and of medical practitioners' referrals of suspected child abuse cases; and the evaluation of a criminal justice system reform project in which refuges, police, probation and the courts provide a coordinated and victim-referenced response to family violence. In addition, a number of students and staff have been active in women's refuges, rape crisis organisations and men for non-violence groups.
References
Abbott, M. W., and Durie, M. H. (1986). A whiter shade of pale: Taha Māori and professional psychology training. New Zealand Journal of Psychology. 16, 58-71.
Gergen, K.J. ((1992). Towards a postmodern psychology. In Steinar Kvale (Ed.). Psychology and postmodernism. London: Sage.
Older, J. (1978). The Pakeha Papers. Christchurch, New Zealand: John McIndoe.
Thomas, D. R. (1992). Ethnic pluralism in Australia and New Zealand: Policies and Practice. In D. R. Thomas, and A. Veno. (Eds.). Psychology and social change. Creating an international agenda. Palmerston North, New Zealand: TheDunmore Press.
Thomas, D. R. (1994). Developing community and social psychology for Aotearoa: Experiences from a New Zealand programme of indigenization. Paper presented to the Third Afro-Asian Congress of Psychology, 23-26 August, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malasia.
Footnotes
1 This is a copy of an article submitted to the third special international edition of The Community Psychologist, the official publication of the Society for Community Research and Action (Division 27 of the American Psychological Association). It is intended specifically for overseas readers. [back]
2 The term "kaupapa" is often taken to mean "philosophy" however, this must be read as a simplistic interpretation [back]
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Community Psychology