To date most models of empowerment have focused on teachers' personal empowerment, which is defined as intrinsic task motivation reflecting an employee's orientation to his or her work role. Interestingly, little scholarly attention has been turned to the interaction of empowerment and work-team membership, that is, to empowerment acquired from…

This study examines the effects of four team-based structures on the organizational commitment of elementary teachers in an urban school district. The study model focuses on organizational commitment and includes three intervening, endogenous variables: teacher empowerment, school communication, and work autonomy. Team teaching had both direct and…

The educators in the teacher inquiry group examine how to teach for social justice and support the development of student-empowering social justice themes in teachers' practice. A better understanding of effective urban teachers' philosophies and practices and putting a system in place to support the professional growth of all teachers are the two…

Although the author wanted to read Bemak, Chung, and Siroskey-Sabdo's article in an objective sense, her response to their article is most likely influenced by her own experiences as an African American female and mother of an African American daughter. To her, the paramount issue facing African American females is the double and sometimes triple…

This study investigated how graduates of an urban alternative school understood, interpreted, and compared their experiences in previous schools that they considered ineffective with their experiences at an effective alternative school. This study found that students find those schools effective that create or allow spaces where they can be…

The education profession in Hong Kong has been experiencing waves of educational reforms since the early 1990s. A system of school-based management has been imported from Western countries without undergoing thorough discussion about the roles that teachers might play in facilitating it. The purpose of this article is to suggest a strategic mix…

Based on written interviews and textual analysis of zines produced by girls involved in the feminist subculture of Riot Grrrl, this article maintains that zine making is one way for girls to form support networks and create a safe space to examine and resist the cultural devaluation of women. (SM)

This paper discusses the outcomes of an initiative to empower ten-year-olds as active researchers. It debates some of the barriers that are commonly cited with regard to children of this age taking ownership of their own research agendas--power relations, competence, knowledge and skills--and challenges the status quo. It describes a study in…

This article asserts that in preparing the youth for tomorrow, one of the educators' preoccupations should be helping them learn to make effective, responsible, intelligent choices. Though educators see the importance of choice in relation to student behavior and classroom management, there is little evidence they have considered choice in…

This paper proposes an expanded conception of scaffolding with four key elements: (1) scaffolding agency--expert, reciprocal, and self-scaffolding; (2) scaffolding domain--conceptual and heuristic scaffolding; (3) the identification of self-scaffolding with metacognition; and (4) the identification of six zones of scaffolding activity; each zone…

Community involvement in education has been viewed as a--by no means uncontroversial--means for enabling local members to deepen their participation in the decision-making relevant to their schools by playing a constructive role in the process. On the basis of a study carried out in Ghana, the present contribution to this discussion examines…

Purpose: The educational literature reflects the widely shared belief that participative leadership has an overwhelming advantage over the contrasting style of directive leadership in organizational and team effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to examine the relative effect of a directive leadership approach as compared with a…

Purpose: To investigate relationships between teacher empowerment and interpersonal level trust in the principal. Design/methodology/approach: Trust is a fundamental element in well-functioning organizations. Studies of empowerment, a motivational construct, have suggested that empowering employees is a key factor in managerial and organizational…

This paper draws on a three-year study of 24 schools involving classroom observations and interviews with teachers and principals. Through an examination of three cases, sets of leadership practices that focus on the learning of both students and teachers are described. This set of practices is called productive leadership and how these practices…

The focus of this paper is on the author's multi-modal therapeutic practice with a 7-year-old boy referred to the Family Trauma Centre, following paramilitary assaults on his father. The work also addresses the boy's experience of domestic violence. The work is contextualised in terms of the "Peace Process" in Northern Ireland, including…