Review of "Women, Education, and Development in Asia: Cross-National Perspectives" (Grace Mak, editor) and "Girls' Schooling, Women's Autonomy and Fertility Change in South Asia" (Roger Jeffery, Alaka Basu, editors) discusses the unpredictable impact of schooling on women, a critical gender-based perspective on human capital…

Early childhood teachers, the first contacts outside the family for many children, are in a key position to convey knowledge about adoption and model acceptance of it. As teachers educate themselves about adoption issues, they can foster a positive response to family diversity in the classroom by raising awareness, empowering adopted children, and…

This article discusses a court case of an adolescent labeled retarded who was sexually assaulted. It examines implications of being spoken about and of others speaking for the labeled person. It then considers how a disability rights/People First framework could shift public and professional understandings and responses to human abuse. (Contains…

For technology to impact student achievement, teachers must be empowered via extensive staff development. This paper presents building-level technology initiatives (e.g., peer training, super substitutes, and computer clubs) and district- level initiatives (e.g., establish a district technology committee, allow teachers to take computers home over…

Examined the motivational effects of a teacher research initiative within an urban alternative school, studying participating teachers' self-efficacy, empowerment, collaboration, and perceptions of school climate via surveys, interviews, observations, and field notes. Growth occurred in general and personal teaching efficacies from pretest to…

Six articles discuss the relationship between parents and teachers: (1) "Creating Partnership with Families: Problem-Solving Through Communication" (Keyser); (2) "Changing Our Attitudes and Actions in Working With Families" (Hilliard and Pelo); (3) "Including Parents in the Process of Documentation" (Hall, Oleson, and Gambetti); (4) "Empowering…

A nonprofit organization in Tucson (Arizona) trains low-income adolescents to document neighborhood histories and tell their own. Working with professionals in the field, Mexican American and other minority youths learn to research, interview, write, photograph, and edit. After four books documenting Tucson history, a magazine was launched that…

Summer of Service, a national summer service learning program for early adolescents is described. The three tenets of this program--intentional design, youth empowerment, and the opportunity to be of use--combine to make a powerful learning experience. Student input is involved at every stage of the program, and learning is incorporated through a…

Scholars theorize that engaging young people in organizational governance promotes positive youth development and organizational effectiveness. To explore this prediction, the study discussed here, based on interview data from 16 youth and 24 adult organizational leaders representing 8 organizations, mapped the developmental processes that occur…

Proposals to make governance "more efficient" by reducing or limiting the faculty role in shared governance are likely to diminish institutional effectiveness.

The present study focuses on the relationship between teacher empowerment and teachers' organizational commitment, professional commitment (PC) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). It examines which subscales of teacher empowerment can best predict these outcomes. The data were collected through a questionnaire returned by a sample of…

This qualitative study, employing an ethnographic research method, investigates how dialogue journal writing, which allows teachers and learners to engage in "written conversation", may provide an opportunity to bring critical pedagogy and foreign language education together in a productive way in the context of a critical literacy…

Background: Despite the widespread use of the term "empowerment" in clinical literature to describe both a desirable process and the outcome of service delivery, the term remains more of a theoretical than practical construct. This study examined the factors that contribute to empowerment in parents of school-aged children with and without…

In an effort to improve our nation's underperforming schools, education reformers are designing programs to educate and empower urban school parents. Parent involvement can be critical to a child's academic success, yet the education community still knows very little about the impact of specific parent programs. We evaluated a parent program that…

It is common knowledge that the great majority of preservice teachers are white while the student population is becoming increasingly diverse. Surveys consistently find that although a large proportion of white preservice students anticipate working with children of another cultural background, as a whole they bring very little cross-cultural…