Empowerment

About: Empowerment is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 42112 publications have been published within this topic receiving 752953 citations.

New graduate burnout: the impact of professional practice environment, workplace civility, and empowerment.

Abstract: The future of professional nursing depends on finding ways to create high-quality work environments that retain newcomers to the profession. The purpose of this study was to examine the combined effect of supportive professional practice environments, civil working relationships, and empowerment on new graduates' experiences of burnout at work. The results support previous evidence of the importance of working environments that enable new graduates to practice according to professional standards learned in their educational programs. Further, the results provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of workplace conditions on new graduate burnout by demonstrating the additive value of working in collegial work settings in which nurses respected others and refrain from incivility behaviors in their day to day work. Given the current nursing shortage, every effort must be made to ensure that new graduates are exposed to high-quality work environments that engage them with their work.

Social Justice Counseling: Toward the Development of a Fifth Force Among Counseling Paradigms

Abstract: A case is made to consider social justice as a fifth force complementary to the psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, existential-humanistic, and multicultural forces in counseling This article explores how social justice is shifting the counseling paradigm and how the ACA (American Counseling Association) Advocacy Competencies (J A Lewis, M S Arnold, R House, & R L Toporek, 2002) complement this movement Implications are also discussed ********** The counseling profession is in the midst of a transformation Specifically, there is a growing movement within the profession calling on counselors to return to their roots by infusing a social justice perspective into counseling theories, paradigms, and practices (Toporek, Gerstein, Fouad, Roysircar, & Israel, 2006) A social justice perspective in counseling acknowledges issues of power, privilege, and oppression (Fouad, Gerstein, & Toporek, 2006) Moreover, a social justice counseling approach uses social advocacy and activism as a means to address inequitable social, political, and economic conditions that impede on the academic, career, and personal/social development of individuals, families, and communities The belief is that social advocacy is a necessary step to address issues of equity for those who have been marginalized in society This is a position that aligns with the American Counseling Association's (ACA; 2005) ACA Code of Ethics, which states in Section A6a, "when appropriate, counselors advocate at the individual, group, institutional, and societal levels to examine potential barriers and obstacles that inhibit access and/or the growth and development of clients" (p 5) The need to make social justice a clearer presence in the field is primarily fueled by forces such as the continued marginalization of those who live on the fringes of society (L Smith, Baluch, Bernabei, Robohm, & Sheehy, 2003); the growing awareness that well-intentioned counselors are not adequately drawing the connection between oppression and mental health issues (Jacobs, 1994); and the increasing realization that counseling paradigms, which focus solely on the individual without regard for environmental factors, may be limiting (Prilleltensky, 1994) These concerns have led to calls to expand the counselor role to include social justice advocacy (Fouad et al, 2006; Lee & Hipolito-Delgado, 2007) The resurgence of a social justice counseling perspective led Ratts, D'Andrea, and Arredondo (2004) to refer to the profession's attempt to return to its roots as a fifth force in the field Based on this perspective, social justice counseling follows the psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, existential-humanistic, and multicultural counseling forces that exist in the profession Other scholars have also followed suit indicating that social justice counseling is a reemerging force that is shaping how human behavior is explained and the ways in which counseling is currently being practiced (Fouad et al, 2006; Goodman et al, 2004; Lee, 2007) Labeling social justice as a fifth force is not a position shared by everyone For example, S D Smith, Reynolds, and Rovnak (2009) suggested that the social justice counseling movement should be viewed as a "recurring wave" (p 484) because the concepts are not new S D Smith et al further added that this movement needs to be grounded in more research if it is to gain credibility in the field I concur Social justice has been a part of the counseling profession since its inception, and more research needs to be conducted to determine best practices However, classifying social justice as a fifth force is not suggesting that it is a new concept Rather, it has more to do with acknowledging how the social justice perspective has matured since its infancy in the early 1900s Moreover, it is about recognizing the depth, breadth, and widespread impact the social justice perspective is currently having on the counseling profession …

Self-stigma, empowerment, and perceived legitimacy of discrimination among women with mental illness.

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: The study sought to better understand why some people with mental illness self-stigmatize and develop low self-esteem while others remain indifferent to stigma or respond with a sense of empowerment. The authors hypothesized that a high level of perceived discrimination, little sense of identification with the group of people with mental illness, and a high level of perceived legitimacy of discrimination lead to self-stigma. METHODS: Sixty women with borderline personality disorder and 30 women with social phobia, who were recruited at three centers in Germany and Switzerland, completed stigma-related questionnaires. RESULTS: After depression and index diagnosis were controlled for, a low level of perceived discrimination and of the legitimacy of discrimination predicted high self-esteem and high empowerment. Identification with the group of people with mental illness did not predict self-esteem or empowerment. CONCLUSIONS: Perceived legitimacy of discrimination may be a crucial determinant of ...

‘Because they can do the work’: women farmers in sustainable agriculture in Pennsylvania, USA

Abstract: Women throughout the West are up to three times more likely to be the operator of a farm in sustainable agricultural models than in productivist models. When women assume the role of farmer they transgress traditional gender identities on farms, which dictate that women are ‘farmwives’ and men are ‘farmers’; these gender identities intersect with spaces in the agricultural community to imply appropriate behavior for women as farmwives. This research demonstrates that the sustainable agriculture community provides spaces that promote and are compatible with women's identities as farmers. Feminist analyses of space and agriculture suggest that productivist agricultural models marginalize women from spaces of knowledge, while sustainable agriculture provides spaces of empowerment for women farmers. The fieldwork for this project involved a purposive survey, in‐depth interviews and participant observation with twenty women farmers over an 18‐month period in the sustainable agriculture community of Central Pen...

Nurse empowerment, job-related satisfaction, and organizational commitment.

Abstract: Developing nursing care and the new technologies involved also require nurses to learn continuously and update their expertise Attention has also been paid to the attractiveness of the profession-its ability to attract young people and retain nurses currently working in the profession The concept of empowerment has been widely adopted in nursing research and in development of nursing care, education, and management In the literature it has generally considered in the context of organizations' functioning and personnel management methods In the psychological theory, used in this study, empowerment is seen as a process of personal growth and development The qualities, values, and endeavours inherent in the individual as well as environmental factors are key factors here The purpose of this article is to describe the results of a quantitative study (n = 416) dealing with nurse empowerment and to identify the background factors significant for its realization Consistent with numerous previous studies, job satisfaction and organizational commitment were found to be crucial elements of nurse empowerment, too