Presents an overview of current research on strategies being utilized to develop the teaching/learning process to reflect the current learning community. Indicates that cooperative learning, critical thinking, andragogical considerations, and reading, writing, and storytelling processes are steps toward restructuring postsecondary education. (33…

Reviews an ethnography of the life experiences in home, school, and community of 14 Mexican American immigrant children as they struggle with acculturation processes. Argues that the authors fail to achieve an "ethnography of empowerment" that puts theory into practice and improves the living conditions of its subjects, and that this notion is…

Presents findings of a project that interviewed students and staff at five Georgia elementary schools to discover students' attitudes toward their schools and teachers. Some students expressed powerlessness; some felt they could make a difference. Issues involving friendship, fairness, and fun predominated. Teachers must participate in their own…

Sudden empowerment of Canadian Aboriginal communities has raised many dilemmas concerning community controlled education, including issues related to educational planning and decision making by inexperienced administrators, focusing educational goals on the community versus mainstream society, discontinuities between community and school culture,…

Asserts that social educators promote the civic competence of young people by conveying the knowledge, skills, and dispositions for taking productive social action. Maintains that quality trade books introduce children to people of diverse backgrounds who model difficult aspects of civic competence. (CFR)

Based on a Phoenix (Arizona) school district's experience, this article shows central office administrators how to empower individual schools without abdicating control. Administrators should first identify all influential parties, seek successful pioneers in other districts, examine research findings, allow time for change, and delegate someone…

This article argues that the trend toward supported employment and transition services still rests on a dependency model of disability. It proposes a model of education for the empowerment of full citizenship in which persons with disabilities are seen as one of many groups disadvantaged by current social prejudice and exclusion. (DB)

Empowerment evaluation is the use of evaluation concepts and techniques to foster self-determination, focusing on helping people help themselves. This collaborative evaluation approach requires both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. It is a multifaceted approach that can be applied to evaluation in any area. (SLD)

Addresses feminist pedagogical issues concerning whether the instructional methods and content of self-defense courses truly result in the empowerment of women in response to violence against them. Reviews research on the utility of learning resistance techniques, lists recommendations for self-defense teaching methods, and outlines a sample…

Discusses how mobility, education, family adjustment, social relationships, and emotional adjustment to adolescence influence health adjustment. Social-work implications suggest a holistic approach emphasizing the concepts of youth and family empowerment and quality of life as the key professional endeavors in practice with youths with…

Looks at the discussion of a small group of girls (ordinarily reticent or diffident in class) in a senior English class as they interpreted the character of Ophelia in Shakespeare's "Hamlet." Discusses the idea that thinking can develop through dialogic (collaborative) rather than dialectic (conflictive) transactions. Notes classroom…

Public education in the U.S. has failed miserably. A substantial reason for this is that parents are not empowered to shape the course of their children's education. Under a system of choice, schools will improve, having to compete to survive. This paper argues that the responsibility for education should be devolved from the state and vested in…

The superintendent of a wealthy, rural school district describes the unique context of schooling reform in Westchester County, New York. Pressures for reform coming from parents and the community lead to interschool competition and spark micropolitics that spill out into the community. Successful schools have greater autonomy and empowered…

The St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County (Oregon) provides a wide range of social services to stimulate community development, based on reuse, repair, and recycling. Job training and jobs are provided in the woodshop, appliance center, mattress factory, glass shop, and environmentally friendly housing construction projects, with priority…

Employs Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, "The Nightingale," and the many lessons within it to help music educators design learning experiences that foster the development of musical expression. Conveys that without musical expression students' music will be mechanical, not unique and meaningful. (CMK)