青少年增权研究述评

青少年增权基本上包括个人增权和集体增权两个层次,青少年增权是新的研究视野、研究角度、工作理念和工作方式。我国学者和实际工作者应加强对青少年增权理论和实践的本土化、我国青少年实际权力状况和增权途径的研究。     

我国城市弱势青少年群体增权问题探析

目前,城市弱势青少年群体客观上处于无权状态并内化为无权感,从青少年个体发展和社会的协调发展来说都需要增权。在现实条件下,实现城市弱势青少年群体的增权途径,主要通过家庭系统、同辈互动、社区参与和舆论媒体等,从而使其提升能力,获得资源。     

From patronage politics to community deliberation: the recent experience of democratic school management in Brazil

The article discusses the limits and possibilities of school empowerment within education systems plagued by pervasive patronage politics. The analysis focuses on reform initiatives implemented by Brazilian sub‐national governments throughout the 1980s and 1990s to allow for the election of school principals by parents, teachers and students. Until the implementation of this reform, state and local authorities had relied on the school system as a source of patronage resources, and principals were nominated according to political criteria. The new system of democratic school management was expected to undermine this patronage‐based system and foster community participation in school decisions. The article relies on secondary evidence to assess the impact of school elections in what concerns the participation of parents, students and teachers in school affairs and the relationship between schools, party politicians and education administrators. It concludes that high levels of social inequality and the lack of a universalistic and effective system of welfare provision constitute serious obstacles to the empowerment of disadvantaged groups in developing societies such as Brazil. On the other hand, the article argues that school empowerment has the potential to undermine resilient patronage structures, by introducing universalistic mechanisms of decision‐making and making school administrators more accountable to their constituencies. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Banking on Social Change: Grameen Bank Lending to Women

The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh has become an international model for microcredit as a poverty alleviation strategy. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to evaluate the Grameen Bank as a strategy for empowering and improving the socioeconomic status of women in Bangladesh, and to identify lessons from the Grameen Bank experience that can inform development policy more generally. Arguments for and against Grameen Bank are evaluated in the light of evidence from studies of the Bank and knowledge of women and development. The conclusions that are drawn from this evaluation are that Grameen Bank is not a panacea for poverty alleviation and improving women's lives, that it has increased the income of borrowers, has led to improvements in specific aspects of their lives, and that it has potential if used in conjunction with other progressive social and economic policies to contribute to long-term, sustainable, progressive social change.     

Making the ‘empowered woman’: exploring contradictions in gender and development programming in Kyrgyzstan

This article examines the complexities of women’s increasing participation in international development programming for gender equality. Taking a specific setting in rural Kyrgyzstan where one such project has been operating, the researchers discover adverse effects on the local women’s livelihoods, status and health. Women’s contradictions are attributed to the women’s own failures and lacks, creating confusion and frustration among them. Adopting Smith’s institutional-ethnography approach, we explicate and map out the hidden processes which must be held accountable for these reactionary outcomes, taking women’s experiences as entry points to inquiry. We find that the reactionary effects are not accidental but organized, powerfully, systematically but invisibly, by taken-for-granted institutional practices serving the purposes of global development institutions, where women are seen as instruments of global economic growth. The analysis provokes critical discussion of ‘how’ and ‘what’ it takes to transform Central Asian women into ‘empowered’ people.     

Victim impact statements and the role of the South African criminologist

This article explores the developments in the plight of victims as well as the professional role of the South African criminologists in offering assistance to victims of crime by compiling victim impact statements on behalf of victims. The VIS has a significant contribution to make in a stage of the judicial process where acknowledgement of a victim takes place after a judgment or a guilty conviction. During the trial process a victim in legal terms does not exist. It is only at this final stage before sentencing that the court will view the complainant as a victim. It is imperative that the complainant＇s voice is heard as a victim-one who has suffered loss regardless of its shape and form. The all encompassing contribution of the VIS lies in its empowering nature due to the fact that it also can contribute to crime prevention by lowering the crime rate and reducing the cyclical nature of violence and crime.     

Federal Employees’ Job Satisfaction: Does Transformational Leadership Matter? The Case of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Morale among U.S. federal employees has increased but remains low compared to the private sector and in certain agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which has experienced scandal and management challenges, including a crisis of leadership. Using data from the 2015 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, this article examines the influence of transformational leadership (TFL) on job satisfaction/commitment among VA employees. Regression analysis reveals a positive association between satisfaction/commitment and each of the four TFL dimensions, controlling for the other dimensions and sociodemographic characteristics. Employees who perceive leaders as fostering creativity, empowerment, trust/respect, and clear goals/expectations are more satisfied/committed.     

Navigating,challenging, and contesting normative gendered discourses surrounding women’s pornography use

While there exists some empirical research on women’s use of pornography, the manner in which women do, and how they understand their pornographic spectatorship, remains under-examined. Focusing on the narratives of 26 women gained through both focus groups and individual interviews, this research explores how women who use pornography and other sexually explicit materials navigate, reaffirm, challenge, and contest normative gendered boundaries that surround women’s sexuality, sexual pleasure, and women’s pornographic use. While ‘pornography as female degradation’ is the most visible feminist discourse, the findings of this study suggest that the meanings attributed to both the experience of engaging with pornography, as well as with pornographic materials themselves, were far from wholly degrading, and in fact, served to provide pleasure, sexual self-actualization, and even corporeal validation – disrupting normative discourses of desiring and desirable bodies.     

Political capabilities for democratisation in Uganda: good governance or popular organisation building?

Opinion is divided about the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) to enhance the political capabilities of disadvantaged groups in neo-patrimonial contexts, and particularly through a hegemonic paradigm which seeks to advance poverty reduction through good governance. Drawing on a qualitative study of CSOs in western Uganda, this paper argues that strategies focused on increasing the participation of rural citizens in formal decentralised planning spaces may be less effective in enhancing their political capabilities than those facilitating social mobilisation through the formation of producer groups and federations. This has important implications for thinking and practice around popular empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Endorsing empowerment? A critical comparative study of peace education in Jamaica and Peru

Is empowering peace education primarily about providing individuals with skills to respond to violence they experience and capabilities to enhance their own lives? Or is inspiring social transformation to alter forms of injustice that contribute to violence an equally valid and important dimension of an empowering peace education program? This article draws upon the authors’ experiences researching peace education programs implemented by local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in two different contexts: Jamaica and Peru. The basis for comparison is grounded in the discourse key actors in these NGOs utilized in reference to their respective educational initiatives, explicitly emphasizing empowerment for marginalized groups. Using critical qualitative techniques and troubling the idea of ‘empowerment,’ the authors analyze the discourse of empowerment to look beyond explicit truth claims and unveil tacit assumptions regarding the purpose and desired outcomes for the beneficiaries of their respective programs. The authors interrogate what definitions of empowerment – social and/or individual – the program stakeholders envision as well as how they believe such empowerment comes about. The study’s findings contribute to the need to critically unpack the commonly uncritical use of the term ‘empowerment’ as necessarily directed toward addressing social inequalities and altering unjust power relations.