Community psychology in Spain: Realities, expectations, and desires

Abstract

In recent times, community action found space for its development in Spain only after the transition to democracy in the late 1970s. Academics and professionals committed to social transformation encountered in the proposals of community psychology (CP) from the English-speaking world a powerful tool for conceptualization and intervention, combining these with the influences of critical Latin American and European currents. However, in the institutional context, social action was diverted into a markedly assistancebased structure, neglecting community action. The activity of the so-called Third Sector has followed a similar pattern, with a predominance of top-down processes in the determination of goals and priorities and actions of a palliative nature. In the academic environment, CP is now present in numerous universities at the undergraduate level, while several postgraduate programs include content related to it. Nevertheless, there is no universally accepted qualification for professional practice in this field. Spanish CP has become stronger over the past decade, through both the integration of different theoretical and methodological perspectives and the development of its own proposals. Even so, it faces the challenge of penetrating the society of our times, characterized, beneath its apparent opulence, by growing apathy and by new forms of alienation and exclusion. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.