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The Institutionalization of Community Interventions in Chile: Characteristics and Contradictions
Author(s) -
Krause Mariane
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1023/a:1015812118935
Subject(s) - institutionalisation , psychological intervention , intervention (counseling) , sociology , community psychology , political science , psychosocial , public relations , psychology , social psychology , medicine , nursing , law , psychotherapist
A critical analysis of the consequences of successive institutionalization of community intervention in Chile is presented. This analysis is based on research of current community interventions in Chile, whose results are compared with Chilean community practice from previous historical periods. Chilean community intervention was formerly practiced out of governmental institutions and universities and was sustained primarily by foreign agencies and ecclesiastical institutions. Nowadays, with the return to democracy, the vast majority of community intervention programs are financed, partially or totally, by means of governmental resources. This institutionalization of community interventions has had consequences worthy of critical analysis: an increase in the number and stability of intervention programs; and also negative consequences for intervention goals, definition of target groups, and intervention practices. Dilemmas, such as assistance vs. promotion or adaptation vs. social change, have arisen. These dilemmas show the contradictions of a Community Psychology, which has left behind the position of institutional marginality to form part of Chilean society's “normal” psychosocial care. They also show the need for a paradigm shift from a “critical” view of the social world to a constructionist one.