The UK's coalition government wants to build a "Big Society." The Prime Minister says "we are all in this together" and building it is the responsibility of every citizen as well as every government department. The broad vision is welcome, but everything depends on how the vision is translated into policy and practice. The…

This study explored outcomes in a constructivist career course. Using a pretest-posttest design, the authors assessed the empowerment (operationalized as career decision self-efficacy) and career indecision of 82 culturally diverse college students at a large, midwestern university. Data were analyzed using a multivariate analysis of variance.…

Social workers have pivotal roles to play in facilitating collective parent involvement in economically poor school communities. Using a community-based, participatory, and empowerment-oriented approach to social work practice and research, this study provides empirical support for this claim. It examines the narratives of 17 economically poor…

The Focus Group Initiative (FGI) at North Delta Secondary School (NDSS) began in 2001 with the long-term goal of giving the kids an opportunity not only to demonstrate their leadership abilities, but also to use those skills to improve whatever school or community projects they were involved in. Once students were trained to be focus group…

This study interviewed 29 women from various countries and spiritual backgrounds, between the ages of 16 and 67, seeking to better understand how dance/creative movement supports women during difficult life struggles such as trauma from abuse, relationship breakups, community violence and loss of self, and how it acts as a connection to the…

The purpose of this case study was to investigate the empowering instructional practices of three technology-using teachers in an elementary school populated by low-income African American students. The participants, from Ladson ES, had been teaching a variety of grade levels and had between six and ten years of experience. Over the course of six…

This study examined how the use of African American literature that depicts Black males influences the reading comprehension and the reading motivation of Black boys as demonstrated through oral, written, and creative expressions. Studies have been conducted using children's literature with Black boys to examine their social interaction with the…

Adult onset, type2 diabetes affects Latino families at a higher rate than other ethnicities and negatively impacting their quality of life, ability to financially succeed, and ultimately impacting our overall economy. Multiple resources are available in the country to help people learn how to prevent, control, and manage diabetes. However, the…

"The Engaged University" is a comprehensive empirical account of the global civic engagement movement in higher education. In universities around the world, something extraordinary is underway. Mobilizing their human and intellectual resources, institutions of higher education are directly tackling community problems--combating poverty,…

The teaching profession has long been structured around full-time classroom responsibilities that are defined by the location, timing, and schedule of the school day and a ubiquitous one-teacher-per-classroom model. In most districts, the only option for highly successful teachers to advance in the profession or serve more students is to leave the…

This study sought to investigate the perceptions of teachers' first-year teaching experiences with a focus on mentoring. Findings of the study provide insight into best practices associated with the development and support of new teachers. The data were collected through the use of a survey consisting of Likert scale and open-ended response items…

The consumer health information (CHI) movement is the result of various twentieth-century ideologies and is an outgrowth of the broader consumer movement. From a sociocultural and political perspective, the consumer, civil rights, and women's movements and related societal shifts helped pave the way for the consumer health movement, which laid the…

Partnerships for Autism through Collaborative Community Choice and Empowerment (Project PACE) was developed to empower parents and professionals (e.g., general or special education teachers, therapists, social workers, school counselors, psychologists) through training and education. Project PACE was designed to provide participants with basic…

This article draws upon concepts developed in recent empirical and theoretical work on high skilled and academic mobility and migration including accidental mobility, forced mobility and negotiated mobility. These concepts inform a situated, qualitative study of mobility among international postdoctoral researchers in life sciences and engineering…

Problems continue to pervade the educational experiences of many minority students, especially Latinos. Through a sociocultural framework, this ethnographic study closely examines the experiences of a Puerto Rican family at home and in an English-dominant school. The study focuses on the school experiences of the family's kindergarten son. The…