Holly Angelique

An advocacy intervention program for women with abusive partners: Six-month follow-up

Presented the 6-month follow-up findings of an experimental intervention designed to provide postshelter advocacy services to women with abusive partners. The intervention involved randomly assigning half the research participants to receive the free services of an advocate, 4 to 6 hours per week, for the first 10 weeks postshelter. One hundred forty-one battered women were interviewed about their experiences immediately upon their exit from a domestic violence shelter: 95% of the sample were interviewed 10 weeks thereafter (postintervention), and 93% were successfully tracked and interviewed 6 months later. At the 6-month follow-up, participants in both groups reported increased social support, increased quality of life, less depression, less emotional attachment to their assailants, and an increased sense of personal power. Although women in both groups reported some decrease in physical abuse over time, there were no statistically significant differences between those with and those without advocates, and abuse continued to be a problem for many women. Those who were still involved with their assailants continued to experience higher levels of abuse and had been more economically dependent upon the men prior to entering the shelter. Women who had worked with advocates continued to report being more satisfied with their overall quality of life than did the women in the control group.

Mentors and Muses: New Strategies for Academic Success

Mentoring programs in higher education institutions have met with mixed success. In response to the limitations inherent in the dominant approaches to mentoring, we present an example of a unusual mentoring program, the New Scholars Network (NSN). The NSN is a variant of traditional mentoring approaches, having evolved from mentoring into musing. Framed within a radical humanist philosophy, musing is a process of creating peer communities that facilitates connections between naturally developing relationships, shared power, and collective action. Through mentoring as musing new faculty have the potential to evolve as change agents in the institution, instead of assimilating into the existing system.

Women's Gendered Experiences as Long-Term Three Mile Island Activists

This article examines women who have been antinuclear activists at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant for two decades. Qualitative interviews focus on their perceived transformations over time that are based on gender and everyday experiences. They perceive gender as both a barrier and a facilitator to activism, even after 20 years. Women describe their technological education as one strategy to overcome the barrier of gender. On the other hand, they consider the gendered role of motherhood as a primary catalyst for action. In addition, they discuss individual everyday experiences focused on the health concerns for family members that influenced their political activity. Over time, women linked personal transformations with increased political understanding and involvement.

Searching for Feminism: An Analysis of Community Psychology Literature Relevant to Women's Concerns

Articles published in both the American Journal of Community Psychology and Journal of Community Psychology, from their inception in 1973 through 1997, were content analyzed for women relevance, diversity, feminism, and historical change. Overall, 9.8% of the articles reviewed (

Promoting political empowerment: Evaluation of an intervention with university students

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Identifying Barriers and Catalysts to Fostering Pro-Environmental Behavior: Opportunities and Challenges for Community Psychology

N = 2,178) were considered women relevant, 4% recognized diversity among women, and 3% were considered feminist. There was an average yearly increase in women-relevant and feminist articles from 7.3 pre-1990 to 11.2 post-1990, and 1.6 pre-1990 to 4.6 post-1990, respectively. Overall, mental health and motherhood were the most addressed content areas. Among feminist articles, gender roles and violence against women were most salient. Race and SES were the most noted issues of diversity in both women-relevant and feminist articles. While an increase in feminist publications by both journals is promising, stereotypes of women and other oppressed groups continue to be perpetuated.

Nuclear Power: Renaissance or Relapse? Global Climate Change and Long-Term Three Mile Island Activists’ Narratives

The aim of this research is to examine the effects of an intervention, focusing on the development of political empowerment, with university students. Undergraduates were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (intervention/control) and were surveyed at two time points: before implementation of the intervention and upon completion of the intervention (or the equivalent two semester period). ANCOVA analyses reveal that individuals who participated in the empowering intervention had increased feelings of political commitment and a decreased sense of political efficacy compared to individuals who were randomly assigned to a waiting list/control group. Finally, limitations of this study are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented.

Participation, Power, and the Role of Community Psychology in Environmental Disputes: A Tale of Two Nuclear Cities

In this paper, we report on an exploratory study of perceived barriers and catalysts to increasing pro-environmental behavior among people associated with the environmental movement. Perceived barriers include time, money, low efficacy and hopelessness. Catalysts focus on changing social norms, especially through education and institutional support. We discuss the tragedy of the commons and free-riding as impediments to change. We use this study as an entryway to hypothesize opportunities and challenges that community psychologists face in motivating and supporting actions to reduce the impact of global climate change. We provide examples of how community psychologists can foster these changes. In short, we argue that community psychology is well positioned to take a leading role in the fight for a carbon neutral future.

Children's responses to natural, technological, and na-tech disasters

Community narratives are increasingly important as people move towards an ecologically sustainable society. Global climate change is a multi-faceted problem with multiple stakeholders. The voices of affected communities must be heard as we make decisions of global significance. We document the narratives of long-term anti-nuclear activists near the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant who speak out in the dawn of a nuclear renaissance/relapse. While nuclear power is marketed as a “green” solution to global warming, their narratives reveal three areas for consideration; (1) significant problems with nuclear technology, (2) lessons “not” learned from the TMI disaster, and (3) hopes for a sustainable future. Nuclear waste, untrustworthy officials and economic issues were among the problems cited. Deceptive shaping of public opinion, nuclear illiteracy, and an aging anti-nuclear movement were reasons cited for the lessons not learned. However, many remain optimistic and envision increased participation to create an ecologically-balanced world.

History and Theory of Community Psychology: An International Perspective of Community Psychology in the United States: Returning to Political, Critical and Ecological Roots

This paper examines public participation and the role of community psychology in an emerging environmental dispute relevant to global climate change (GCC)—whether nuclear power represents a “green” solution. From a dialectical position, we explore the nuclear debate as it is linked to GCC, and more specifically, how participation in related federally-mandated processes may be shaped by power. We present qualitative data from public meetings in two nuclear communities and analyze these data through a lens of social power and environmental justice, including an examination of nukespeak and telepolitical appeals to highlight the complexity of the issues, how the appearance of successful participation may be deceptive, and how consensus may be manipulated. We argue that CP should consider GCC to be one of the most significant social problems of our time and make every effort to be involved in the search for truly “green” solutions.