A conceptual framework for context-sensitive prevention programming: A symbolic interactionist perspective

The rate of future progress in the field of prevention is dependent, in part, on the adoption of an overarching conceptual framework which will provide a sound theoretical basis for the development of multilevel, context-sensitive prevention programming. Two broad approaches to the study of culture (cultural adaptationism and symbolic interactionism) are examined and compared regarding their ability to provide such a framework. It is argued that symbolic interactionism provides a resolution to three issues which have proven problematic for cultural adaptationism: the issues of locus, scope, and cultural integrity. The advantages of symbolic interactionism for prevention programming include an emphasis on targeting both the individual and the multiple contexts in which the individual is embedded, a distinction between the contexts of poverty and ethnic heritage, and a focus on understanding, accommodating to, and explicitly teaching the interactional norms, strategies, and styles appropriate to different sociocultural contexts.