The Kanuhkwene Project, based on a traditional concept of community, was developed by Oneida women to address critical social issues. Kanuhkwene empowers through connection with the social world and the natural world, and is instructive for what it shows about the possibilities of mainstream social services versus traditional Native American…

The important concepts undergirding school-based management are greater budgetary autonomy, district-level support for local school needs assessments and plans, allowed deviations from district normative expectations, better onsite decision-making opportunities, and a total district commitment to instructional and administrative excellence. In…

Recent study of emergent collaborative bargaining processes in several urban school districts charts typical bumpy progression from wrangling to genuine cooperative problem solving among teachers, administrators, and unions. Rules of power game change when one party makes first move toward open communication and trust building, when teachers and…

Numerous studies have used the power metaphor in the physical science sense to describe power in the organizational sense. This paper views school as an electrical distribution system to illustrate how power operates in schools and offers eight lessons for administrators desiring to effect positive empowerment results in school settings. (26…

Milwaukee's African-American Immersion Middle School is designed to negate and/or eliminate the institutional and attitudinal influences impeding African-American students' academic success. Although the school mission will promote an egalitarian view, teachers will be expected and encouraged to draw on African-American students' life experiences.…

Provides an overview of empowerment philosophies and practices in business and educational settings. Role changes for empowerment are discussed, and resistance factors regarding empowerment are described for each setting. (four references) (LRW)

Presents a series of six career planning modules designed specifically to facilitate university students' concept of themselves as active agents in the career planning process. Focuses on one of the modules: Translating a Degree into an Occupation, which assists graduating liberal arts students to understand their potential in the world of work…

Technology cannot resolve instructional problems unless teachers are involved in the technology decision-making process. To be truly empowered, educators must perform curriculum, student, and community needs analyses; determine curricular objectives; develop district and school plans; provide cooperative teacher training prior to initiation; and…

A model for assessing the needs of the rural elderly based on the goal of empowerment is described and evaluated through a case study in Pennsylvania. Overall, the 63 community workers positively evaluated the needs assessment data derived through the model. Ways to enhance the model are discussed. (SLD)

Reviews the literature attesting to the strengths of African-American families and explores ways in which those strengths can be affirmed in the infrastructure of the family system. Explores a conceptualization of empowerment that involves rejecting a structural functionalist perspective in favor of a sociocultural framework. Discusses…

Would-be change agents must commit to a lifelong process of self-examination that allows them to distinguish between "self-selected" or "other-imposed" changes. Certain steps are helpful: identifying and speaking vision; empowering self and others; knowing one's values; recognizing personal and environmental enhancers and barriers to change; and…

The cycle of social breakdown, self-perpetuating stages of negative adjustment among older persons, can be halted by empowering people through prevention and wellness and by changing attitudes of the culture, care providers, and decision makers toward aging. (SK)

The Empowered School District Project is a three-year endeavor to facilitate the creation of empowered schools in nine school districts across the country. Discusses six themes that emerged in the change process: (1) framing; (2) process and content; (3) trust; (4) risk taking; (5) communication; and (6) critical mass and critical incident. (18…

Notes that all individuals experience the aging process and that many associate aging with negative changes and decline. Contends that counselors must develop interventions that have a positive impact on the aging experience. Examines transitions of midlife and late life and proposes empowerment as a counseling strategy to help individuals meet…

"Promised" by the Dawes Act of 1887, U.S. citizenship was finally granted to all Native Americans in 1924 and reaffirmed in 1940 as World War II and military service loomed. Nevertheless, six states prevented Indians from voting until the 1950s. Since then, Indian political participation and voting power have grown, particularly in some western…