This review of the literature defines the concept of student empowerment, discusses the implications of student empowerment in educational settings, and outlines strategies for facilitating increased empowerment. A definition of "empowerment" as "bringing into a state of belief one's ability to act effectively," is offered and the critical…

Summarizes the Carnegie Foundation president's September 1987 speech concerning this generations's most urgent task--rebuilding the nation's schools. Warns that today's teachers may have gained in competency and responsibility, but not in empowerment to shape curricula, plan inservice programs, or shape student retention and special education…

Argumentation skills are frequently touted as archetypal tools of democratic empowerment, yet theorization of ways to use such tools to achieve concrete social change is rare. As a result, the emancipatory "telos" anchoring American academic policy debate tends to gallop ahead of practical efforts to build empowerment through the debate…

East Asia is the region which has experienced unprecedented growth in the past few decades. This growth resulted in the increase in education opportunities and the empowerment of women. Modernization and globalization provided opportunities for many women in China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan. Modern Asian women can obtain…

Writing centers and their faculty are often considered to be "Others" because they have both power and no power--they have the ability to make a difference in students' writing abilities, but they are often excluded because they are seen as a "fixit," a clinic, a lab, an ancillary. Writing center faculty need to take more power so that they can…

The ability to function independently as a reader and writer in the society is defined here as "functional literacy" and includes, for gay or lesbian students, access to their own cultural literature and the recognition of a multi-cultural literacy that includes gay and lesbian culture. Two central beliefs are at the heart of the…

A successful charter school does more than educate and train children: it unites a community. That is the keynote of this bulletin, an edited version of remarks delivered at a luncheon by one of the founders of a charter school in Albany, New York. It describes the process of creating one particular charter school and the lessons learned from the…

The Transformational Leadership theory proposed by J. M. Burns (1978) may be profitably applied to the role of debate/forensic coach. A Transformational Leader aims to fulfill the personal needs of followers by giving them the power to think and act for themselves, thus empowering them to work toward the group vision. A Transformational Leader…

Abolitionist-feminist Angelina Grimke's "Pennsylvania Hall" address in 1838 is more than an important early feminist document. Through the use of rhetorical techniques (such as those known to contemporary feminists as elements of "consciousness raising"), Grimke empowers herself and her women listeners through the act of…

Alchemy is the magical or mysterious power or process involving chemistry, magic, and philosophy in transforming one thing into another. The term is often used to describe the medieval study that sought to transform cheaper metals into gold or silver. "Educational alchemy" is the process by which schools are converted into more effective learning…

Adventure-based programs may be designed in a way that not only provides an intervention aimed at therapy or development, but also teaches participants to become their own agents of change. McWhirter's model proposes that empowerment is broader than notions of personal autonomy and efficacy, reaching outside the individual. The model specifies…

Writing teachers interested in overcoming student resistance or unwillingness to question authority should consider using "zines" in the classroom. According to one teen-ager, zines are "sorta like a magazine you publish yourself, but other people help you out." Concentrating on about any subject that interests its writers from…

This paper highlights an attempt by two grade 8 teachers, Bulelwa and Kevin, to draw in the everyday in the teaching of mathematics. Though located in different South African contexts and settings, both teachers tend to enable their learners' access to mathematics by rendering the everyday inauthentic. I argue that inauthenticating the everyday is…

Due to the fact that college classrooms are increasingly culturally diverse, the challenge for instructors is to foster a learning environment in which students gain a more focused sense of identity and achieve academic success. Through the use of stories in the communication classroom, at-risk students from diverse backgrounds can recognize the…

Students, either male or female, can be silenced by the adversarial discourse that often characterizes argumentative situations. Alternatives proposed by feminist rhetoricians should apply to any voice silenced in the classroom. Rhetoricians concerned with empowering writers of argument have illustrated three alternatives that enable writers to…