Community psychologists strive to solve complex social issues daily all around the world. To do so they make use of different theories, strategies and approaches. Two key approaches utilized by these researchers are the top-down and bottom-up approaches (Frumkin, 2021). This article will consider a brief overview of community psychology and focus on exploring the two key approaches researchers use to tackle social issues through comparing significant similarities and differences between these methods and supplementing it with real world examples.
Community psychology is a young subdiscipline of psychology that emerged out of dissatisfaction with clinical and medical models of psychology in the 1960’s. Therefore, it does not focus on an individual in isolation but rather aims to investigate and solve problems on multiple levels of analysis. According to Kloos, these levels of analysis in order starting with the lowest level of influence include the individual, microsystem, organizations, localities and macrosystems (Frumkin, 2021). Unlike clinical psychology, community psychology focuses on a proactive prevention approach that aids disadvantaged communities by providing them with opportunities to access, for example, schools, after-school programs, nutritious food programs etc. to empower community members and contribute to their overall mental well-being. Community psychologists use several approaches which include but are not limited to the top-down and bottom-up approaches (Frumkin, 2021). The top-down approach encompasses researchers to work with an expert who identifies an issue that needs to be addressed and directs the plan of action that is often set in motion by policy makers which allows local groups to become involved in reaching the individuals in the community. In contrast, the bottom-up approach comprises of researchers asking the people of the affected community what they think the main problems and solutions are. These two approaches share some similarities and have some differences which will be explored in further detail.
One point of resemblance between the top-down and bottom-up approach can be found in their shared stated and implied goals. According to Frumkin (2021), there are three major goals that these two models have in common when applied to further social change. First, both models aim to influence the community residents’ views on the issue at hand and to get them on board to actively participate in ironing out these problems. Secondly, both want to effectively change the community resident’s values and perceptions through promoting community-orientated behaviors. Finally, both approaches aim to advance the socio-emotional environment of the greater part of the community. Even though their goals are similar, they both follow a different process. The bottom-up process entails building partnerships between community members and professionals who supply technical support rather than taking the lead. On the other hand, programs utilizing the top-down model demand the community residents to consent to professional leadership and services that involve an external plan of action (Frumkin, 2021). Because of their shared goals, it is not a matter of identifying the goals based on the approach chosen but rather choosing the best fit approach for the specific scenario at hand. An example of choosing between such processes is when the Open University academics were approached by the UK police force to improve their survey measuring community satisfaction (Frumkin, 2021). Regardless of which process they would choose to utilize, the goal of improving the police survey would stay fixed. Despite both approaches being different by nature, their goals are clearly similar.
A major difference between the two approaches lies in who identifies the social issue at hand, creates the action plan and sets into motion its implementation. The top-down approach emanates from paternalism and is hierarchical in nature (Frumkin, 2021). This process starts at the macrosystem and is typically set under way by an authoritative figure who is seen to be most relevant to achieve the desired outcome, hence the word ‘top’. One such example is the covid-19 pandemic, where governments mandated certain social rules like, masking, staying home during lockdowns and vaccinations, and people was expected to comply. Conversely, the bottom-up approach has its incentive for action to empower individuals at the grassroot level and is liberal in nature (Frumkin, 2021). This process entails that initiative start from the individual level, hence the word ‘bottom’. Defund the police’ is one such example and had its origins due to police brutality and discrimination towards citizens of the African American communities in America. This racial discrimination caused citizens of the community to merge with advocates of racial equality and justice to push back against police discrimination and injustice. These examples bring to light one of the main differences between these two contradicting strategies and how they operate in the real world.
Another point of commonality can be found in the necessity of residents of the community to recognize and acknowledge that there is a social issue at hand that needs to be addressed and to buy into actively participate in executing an action plan to bring forth the desired outcome (Frumkin, 2021). Referring to a previous example of improving police satisfactory survey, if the OU academics decided to tackle the problem using the top-down method, they could either create a new questionnaire themselves or they could give suggestions to the police on how to best design a questionnaire. If the academics decided to use a bottom-up approach to solve the issue, they could ask for the community’s input on how an adequate police survey should look like. Regardless of which method they would choose to use, for them to be successful in their endeavor, community members must first become aware of and accept that there is a problem, and they must be willing to actively participate in the solution. This unveils another similarity between the two approaches, however there are still some differences to be considered.
Another key difference between the two approaches can be found in their limitations. According to Frumkin (2021), the main disadvantages of the top-down method are, first, it assumes that the residents of the community are powerless to help themselves. Similarly, community residents may feel that this process is being forced upon them. As a result, using this approach may be defective in its ability to reach action on the street-level. Thinking back to the example of the police satisfactory survey mentioned earlier, if a top-down approach was chosen, community members may disagree with the problems the questions address and may lack the motivation to participate, resulting in minimal social change. In contrast, the first fundamental disadvantage of adopting a bottom-up approach is that it is time consuming when attempting to promote social change. Second, resources are not always readily available. Finally, because it is democratic in nature, it is difficult to reach consensus between individuals when deciding on certain issues such as role designation, identifying essential values and preferred solutions (Frumkin, 2021). For instance, if the OU academics would follow a bottom-up approach, there may be a high level of disagreement between citizens regarding issues to include and which question to add and discard. Furthermore, it will also be a time-consuming process to resolve these issues. Considering the disadvantages of each approach highlights a clear difference between these two contrasting methods.
In some circumstances, there is another approach to consider, that is, to combine the top-down and bottom-up approaches. These two approaches can be used in tandem or in an alternate format. According to Frumkin (2021), people who are part of the community and those experts who are not, both have different but valuable perspectives to offer. Looking back at the example about the UK police survey, a simultaneous top-down and bottom-up approach would permit the police to state which questions are of value to them and allow citizens to express what is prominent to them when reporting on how satisfied they are with the police. In a nutshell, both the authoritative entity and the individuals of the community would help to improve the survey and as a result will benefit both parties and promote active participation that will lead to social improvement within the community. This method cast light on the similarities and discards some of the differences between the two approaches they would have had if used in isolation.
In conclusion, the top-down and bottom-up approaches are fundamentally different by nature and opposite in many ways. The key differences between the two methods can be found in who identifies the issue and initiates the plan of action. In addition, they differ in that they have different disadvantages. Despite these fundamental differences, there are key communalities among these two approaches. One such parallel is that both approaches have similar stated and implied goals. Moreover, neither approach can be successful in affecting social change if the community members do not acknowledge the problem and then actively get involved in the solution. Lastly, in certain situations a combination of these two approaches has the potential to satisfy all the parties involved from the macrosystem to the individual level.
Reference list:
Frumkin, L. (2021) ‘Community Psychology’, in J. Turner, C. Hewson, K. Mahendran and A. Strathie (eds) Living Psychology: From the Everyday to the Extraordinary. Open University, UK: Walton Hall and Milton Keynes, pp. 251-290
Frumkin, L. (2021) ‘Week 10: Community Psychology’, DD210-24J: Living Psychology: From the Everyday to the Extraordinary. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=2350750 (Accessed: 6 January 2025).
