Describes community planning as an empowering professional practice. Compares the empowerment practices of process-focused and product-focused planning. Uses stages of rational comprehensive planning and stages of community empowerment as the context. (SK)

This taxonomy of effective community development approaches in service delivery, capacity building, advocacy, and social mobilization identifies the degree to which they can empower people. (SK)

Empowerment is a contested concept, an ideology creating new forms of control. Conceptualizing it as a multilevel construct is a step toward building a new hegemony for the working class, by raising consciousness of control, participation, shared vision, and ownership. (SK)

Attempts to clarify empowerment as used in black communities in the United Kingdom, using Liverpool as a case study. Illustrates the ambiguity of the concept and the incomplete success of empowerment initiatives for community development and improvement. (SK)

Older people who suffer from a sense of powerlessness, helplessness, and low self-esteem are inadequately helped by existing services. A community work approach can help them become active and empowered individuals with stronger contacts with the community. (SK)

Empowerment for disadvantaged communities is complex; issues involved are defining community, conflicts of interest, equating populism with empowerment, and viewing it as zero-sum. Given these impediments and the nature of disadvantage, community development should conduct rational analyses of need, continue dialog with community interests, and…

An approach to integrating casework and community development includes the practices of empowerment, community building, and social action. The aim is to give disadvantaged people more choice and control over their lives. (Contains 14 references.) (SK)

Concept mapping of case studies resulted in nine organizational domains for community empowerment: participation, leadership, organizational structures, problem assessment, resource mobilization, critical awareness, linkages, outside agents, and program management. The domains provide a way to define and measure empowerment. (Contains 45…

Using Kindervatter's model of nonformal education, the author interviewed community health workers in London to assess their contribution to the empowerment of community health groups. Results indicate that a minority of projects have succeeded in integrating reflection and action and are involved in an empowering process. (Author/JOW)

Describes education and training in Wisconsin intended to encourage participation and advocacy by citizens with disabilities. Various projects were undertaken with support from the Wisconsin Council on Developmental Disabilities. Topics presented include project benefits, lessons learned, and prospects for change. (CH)

Explains Freire's key concepts: "banking" education, conscientization, dialog, and facilitation. Discusses how Freire's notion of power and empowerment could potentially lead to ideological manipulation serving an educator's agenda. (SK)

A remote Australian town's initiative to develop an Internet cafe was based on a foundation of community empowerment and capacity building. The project's failure illustrates factors that inhibit community control: overstretched local resources, failure to understand impact on existing social infrastructure and social networks, and lack of…

Empowerment as social action addresses lack of control by enhancing participation in community action. An alcohol and substance abuse prevention program for New Mexico adolescents used Freire's problem posing and critical thinking philosophy and methods to empower young people to change their health behavior. (SK)

A case study of health reform in British Columbia followed four health-planning groups' efforts to foster community participation by developing local community health plans. Findings from the case study can inform the theory and practice of community development. (JOW)

Discussions with women in rural areas of India analyzed government-initiated development programs regarding availability of information, suitability to women's needs, and perception of problems. Most programs were top down with little input form women; self-help approaches problematized the "self" and did not consider the realities of…