During the past quarter century, community psychologists have worked to make relevant contributions to human welfare in community settings and to effect social change. Working with and in schools, neighborhood organizations, religious institutions, social programs, and government agencies, the community psychologist has come to understand how social settings and social policy influence behavior and foster change that promotes individual health and well-being. Using a social ecological paradigm as their guiding framework, they focus on the interactions between persons and their environments, cultural diversity, and local empowerment for understanding organizational, community, and social change. Community psychologists have relied on multiple methods of obtaining data but more often, they have had to develop new methodologies or adapt existing ones. These innovative methods have been recorded in the American Journal of Community Psychology throughout the years of its history and have changed the way that researchers in the field have gathered data.

Dedication. Preface. List of Contributors. Editors'' Biographies. Table of Contents. Introduction to the volume; T.A. Revenson. I: Design Issues in Intervention Research. Section Overview; A.R. D''Augelli. 1. Probing the Effects of Individual Components in Multiple Component Prevention Programs; S.G. West, et al. 2. From Field Experiments to Program Implementation: Assessing the Potential Outcomes of an Experimental Intervention Program for Unemployed Persons; A.D. Vinokur, et al. 3. Research on the Cost Effectiveness of Early Educational Implications for Research and Policy; S.W. Barnett, C.M. Escobar. II: Ecological Assessment. Section Overview; M. Shinn. 4. Measuring Neighborhood Context for Young Children in an Urban Area; C.J. Coulton, et al. 5. Ecological Assessments of Community Disorder: Their Relationship to Fear of Crime and Theoretical Implications; D.D. Perkins, R.B. Taylor. 6. Detecting Cracks'' in Mental Health Service Systems: Application of Network Analytic Techniques; M. Tausig. 7. Social Support Processes in Early Childhood Friendship: A Comparative Study of Ecological Congruences in Enacted Support; T.A. Rizzo, W.A. Corsaro. 8. Setting Phenotypes in a Mutual Help Organization: Expanding Behavior Setting Theory; D.A. Luke, et al. III: Culturally-Anchored Research. Section Overview; T.A. Revenson. 9. In Pursuit of a Culturally-Anchored Methodology; D. Hughes, E. Seidman. 10. Using Focus Groups to Facilitate Culturally Anchored Research; D. Hughes, K. DuMont. 11. The Structure of Problem and Positive Behavior among American Indian Adolescents: Gender and Community Differences; C.M. Mitchell, J. Beals.