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Introduction

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Cultural and Critical Explorations in Community Psychology

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Abstract

The idea for this book emerged in a singular moment. During the third year of my doctoral program in psychology, I worked as an intern for an African American agency in the inner city of Portland, Oregon, where I primarily conducted psychological evaluations. In my mind’s eye, I can still see Ron, my supervisor, sitting behind his desk, legs crossed, with the top of his head peeking out above the 25-page psychological report I had just written. It had taken me weeks to write the report; I had combed over every piece of data and synthesized every important detail of this young man’s life, drawing on information from a comprehensive psychological assessment battery. In my review of the results, I was careful to consider the test scores from a “cultural perspective,” especially regarding the normative data for African American performance on psychometric measures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology, Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Heather Macdonald

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  1. Heather Macdonald
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Macdonald, H. (2016). Introduction. In: Cultural and Critical Explorations in Community Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95038-6_1

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