Empowerment and My

Profession
Implications for Performance and Productivity

SYAHIDATUL KHAFIZAH BINTI MOHD HAJARAIH

For:
Professor Rahim Md Sail
Lecturer
DCE 5010 (Philosophy and Principles of Extension Education)
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

Empowerment and My profession: Implications for Performance and Productivity

by:

Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih

Introduction:

Empowerment is essential to continuous improvement at the personal, professional, and

organizational levels. Scholars think that empowerment is important since performance of business

really relates to how employees are involved in decision making (Cherif, Ofori-Amoah, Stefurak, Roze,

Murkar, Hanna, and Gialamas, 2010). According to UNESCO, empowerment is:

“…how individuals or communities engage in learning processes, in which they create,

appropriate and share knowledge, tools, and techniques in order to change and improve the quality of

their own lives and societies. Through empowerment, individuals not only manage and adapt to change

but also contribute to/ generate changes in their lives and environments. In other words, empowerment

is not only about one’s ability to learn and build their capacity, but also to encourage others and initiate

change in the community or organization that they serve…” (cf. Mohajer & Earnest, 2009).

There are several types of empowerment according to few scholars as listed by Mohajer and

Earnest (2009) such as psychological empowerment for example self-mastery and self-efficacy (Bandura,

1982), individual empowerment (Rappaport, 1981; Swift and Levin, 1987) and process and outcome

oriented empowerment (Fetterman and Wandersman, 2005). The other also includes social and political

action (Craig and Mayo, 1995) and multi-level combination empowerment (Israel, Checkoway, Shulz, &

Zimmerman, 1994; Wallerstein, 2006).

2
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

In academe, empowerment is defined as the process whereby stakeholders are encouraged and

supported in utilizing their skills, and creativity to embrace ownership and accountability for the well

being of their department and institution (Cherif et al, 2010). Black (1987) quoted that it is essential that

an organization align the vision and mission between department and institutional or ‘enacting the

vision’ by collaborating in order to establish clear goals and expectations focused on the institution’s

vision and mission but within agreed-upon boundaries. This is to make sure that the department and

institution are working for the same objective and speak the same language when it comes to

performance and outcome. However, since the participants of empowerment programs define their

own goals, the aims of empowerment itself may only be relevant for that particular social and cultural

context (Wallerstein, 1993).

This paper aims to outline the impact or results of empowerment in my profession as an

academic. I will discuss on the definition of empowerment and empowerment in academe from several

literatures, and relate it to my career endeavor. Then, the paper will discuss on the importance of

empowerment in my career as an academic. The results that might be achieved through empowerment

in academe will also be discussed. Last but not least, I will also suggest on ways and things that can be

done by my department, or university to empower faculty members including myself.

Academic Profession: A Noble Job

Career in academic is a noble job whereby the academic can actually change one’s ability,

knowledge and attitude, and gain wisdom. Through a career in academics, a teacher or a lecturer could

produce influential leaders, successful businessman, highly-skilled doctors, and most definitely another

teacher or lecturers. The knowledge extension needs a committed person who is passionate about

3
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

knowledge and knowledge sharing and disseminating. Also, the job required someone to be able to

deliver knowledge to others effectively.

One of the responsibilities of an educator is to make sure that her /his students are able to be

independent and initiate change in order to increase their quality of life. This is contradicting to the

concept of giving only without bringing any change inside the receiver themselves. In this matter, the

concept that is being discussed is empowerment. It is not only a question on how far the educator are

able to empower her/ his students so that they will be able to use the knowledge they learned to

improve their life, but also helping others to improve their respective life.

Academe today has faced so much transformation compare to 10 or 20 years ago. In order for

educators to execute their responsibility with dedication, they need strong capacity to enable them to

survive in this challenging academics path. Capacity buildings within empowerment in academics career

endeavor are as listed but not limited to academic qualification, teaching and facilitation skills,

leadership skills, research and writing skills, and last but not least, physical needs and support. Precisely,

it is as illustrated in Figure 1.

4
p
a
C
ild
u
B
g
n
y
t
c
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

Figure 1 Capacity Building for Academic

1. Academic qualifications and mastering subject matters. An academic shall obtain outstanding

academic qualification to convince students and potential students, and also the society on their

credibility in their respected field. For instance, Universiti Putra Malaysia requires its lecturers-to-be

to obtain first class honors or at least second class upper in their undergraduate work and excellent

in Masters and Doctoral Degree studies. Hence, the tutors are sent to further their studies and will

only be elected as a permanent lecturer after finishing their doctoral degree. It is crucial that the

academic are prepared and ready to take the responsibility to educate the society and credible so

that they will be respected by students and fellow colleagues.

2. Teaching and facilitating skills. These are two essential skills needed by an educator to deliver their

knowledge to others. Lecturers had to have teaching or at least facilitating skills to help them in

delivering and disseminating knowledge. There are a lot of people succeeded in mastering

5
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

knowledge and excellent in learning things for their own benefits. However, most of them failed to

deliver the knowledge effectively in a way that others can understand it. Therefore, these skills are

necessary in order for lecturers to deliver their knowledge to students and help them understand

the subject matter. These skills can be learned from the courses taken in undergraduate and post

graduate classes, through observation, and participation in training and related courses. Lecturers

should appreciate two concepts in education which are pedagogy and andragogy. Pedagogical

concept is needed to teach theories and concepts to students, whereas andragogical concept or

adult education is necessary as lecturers are dealing with matured adults students.

3. Communication skills. Communication skills are important for lecturers in order to implement their

daily tasks and responsibilities. Aside from dealing with students, they also need communication

skills to build network with other academic, government, and also industries. Interpersonal

communication skills, workplace communication, media communication and so on so forth are

crucial in academe. Normally, students and other clients will feel more comfortable doing business

with academic with excellent communication skills.

4. Physical needs. As an academic, academics need full support from the organization in terms of

providing physical facilities that are conducive, such as office space, reliable PC, and so forth, in

order to enable them to work efficiently. Other than that, they also need financial support in terms

of research grants, scholarships, and fellowship to conduct research and participate in lifelong

learning program that contribute to their professional development and capacity as an academic.

Recently, there are numbers of government and private organization that provides opportunities for

academics to do research and consultation projects based on their related field. For instance,

Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) that offer scholarship to do research in

6
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

science field, and Social Institute of Malaysia that offer grants to do action research that helps in

solving social issues.

As an academic in this modern era, a lecturer should equip themselves with up-to-date gadgets

and latest technology to enhance teaching and learning. This is crucial as they have to cope with

their students who are exposed to the latest technology. Examples of facilities and support that can

benefits academics are internet services, software subsidies, laptops and notebook, as well as

administrator support towards changes and innovation in teaching and learning such as using wikis

and learning system like Moodle.

5. Leadership and Administrative Skills. Academics tasks are not limited to only teaching, doing

research, and consultation. More often than not, they also hold responsibilities as administrator in

their respected organization, for instance, as head of department, dean, or even a vice chancellor. In

order carry out the responsibilities efficiently, academics should possess excellent administration

skills including leadership skill, task delegating skill, time management skill, resource management

skill, and last but not least, followership skill. Nonstop commitment should also contribute to

impactful leadership, especially when there are strong support from their superior, colleagues, and

inferior.

In a nutshell, a career in academics requires more than just interest and passion. It will add

more values in the job when the capacity is carefully build and the academic really know the true

meaning of their contribution to the academe and society as whole. In the subsequent topics, I will

discuss on the roles of empowerment in a academic’s career. The relationship with individual

performance and its effect on organization will also be discussed to show the impact on productivity.

7
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

Roles of Empowerment in My Career as an Academic

The roles and importance of empowerment in academe are not limited to individual

development. It also gives significant impact to the organizational development and country betterment.

If an empowerment program is carefully planned, it will result with all department members striving for

optimal performance in their individual endeavors and aims to success in learning and accomplishment

(McGregor, 1960). This naturally leads to higher levels of departmental efficiency and effectiveness.

As such, empowerment is a crucial component in faculty leadership development. Arenas,

Bleau, Eckvahl, Gray, Hamner, and Powell (2009) think that an effective leader must provide the

opportunity to develop and hone critical thinking skills so that the individual can have the tools needed

to resolve problems and conflicts. Hence, it may require a change in the department chair’s thinking on

how to manage faculty, staff, students, and the business of the department. It may also require a change

in how faculty and chairs perceive and practice relationships with each other within their department.

After all, building an effective academic department will only happen through building good faculty,

staff, and academic programs (Cherif, et al, 2010).

As McGregor (1960) puts it, empowerment encourages faculty and staff to develop skills and

personal traits and exercise the type of autonomy that helps an institution achieve its primary goal of

improving learning opportunities for its students and providing professional development opportunities

for its employees. In this sense, empowerment can be viewed as a mission-driven, achievement-based,

and professional growth-oriented objective that aims to liberate the leadership within the faculty and

staff and to release the power they already have to do their best beyond their accepted accountabilities

and responsibilities (Bennis & Nanus, 1997 and Blanchard, Carlos, Randolph, 1996). Consequently,

according to few literatures, empowerment in academe will also results in:

8
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

1. Increased faculty status, a highly developed knowledge base, and autonomy within boundaries

in decision making (Maeroff 1988; Blanchard, Carlos, & Randolph 1996; Short and Greer, 1997 ).

2. High quality student performance, satisfaction, retention, and career opportunities (Mayers,

Riccordati, and Hohmeier, 1995). 

3. Organizational efficiency and labor-management cooperation.

4. Faculty growth in professional development, intellectual productivity, and personal satisfaction.

Cherif et al (2010), in their articles, stated that the concept of empowerment philosophy stems

from the premise that:

‘…empowered employees benefit the organization and themselves. They have a greater sense of

purpose in their jobs and lives, and their involvement translates directly into continuous improvement in

the workplace systems and processes. In an empowered organization, employees bring their best ideas

and initiatives to the workplace with a sense of excitement, ownership, and pride. In addition, they act

with responsibility and put the best interests of the organization first…’ (Blanchard et al., 1996).

Therefore, with the underlying philosophy, I strongly believe that empowerment is important

for academic so that;

• They will strive for optimal performance and continuous improvement in individual endeavors

to enhance the faculty and university especially in learning and accomplishment.

• It will be easier for the university to promote leadership development as empowerment itself

aims ‘…to liberate leadership within the faculty and staff and to release the power they already

have to do their best beyond their accepted accountabilities and responsibilities…’ (Bennis &

Nanus, 1997 and Blanchard, Carlos, Randolph, 1996).

9
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

• The academic will have a strong sense of belongings, excitement, and pride to the organization

and their career.

• The academic might have greater sense of purpose in jobs and lives doing things at their best

and enjoy working and doing their daily tasks.

Empowered Academic and the Impacts.

As I put it in the earlier paragraphs, there are proven results of empowerment and its benefits to

individual and organization. In this topic, I would like to confer about the impacts of empowerment

towards academic’s performance and productivity. In order to discuss further about it, first we have to

understand how I viewed the position of empowerment in order for me to results in a high performance

and productivity work.

As discussed earlier, the basis in discussing performance in an employee should start with their

capacity building. That is the basic requirements for an employee in order to execute their job

efficiently. When the basic needs are fulfilled, there comes empowerment in the scene. It will

compliment the needs in an employee that the capacity did not cover. In my point of view, the purpose

of empowerment in this context is to give employees the inner strength and guts to responsibly

implement their responsibilities. The nature of the relationship is as illustrated in Figure 2.

Empowerment in academe can be a strong motivation for academic to sustain the passion for academic

world, students, research, and community engagement. They will not tired of their work and will be

happy to do it everyday.

10
j
I
,
k
x
R
ti
w
b
s
u
l
v
C
A
m
y
f
c
a
p
e
d
t
r
o
n
g
i
h
K
;
tt
a
C
l
i
B
p
E
n
m
f
c
u
d
o
r
P
&
e
w
y
t
v
ti
g
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity

Academic
Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

Figure 2 The Relationship of Capacity Building and Empowerment to Performance and Productivity of an

However, in order to produce the expected results, the university management should realize

that embedded in this philosophy is the task of providing the environment and policies that allow

autonomy within boundaries for faculty and allow department chairs to learn “a whole new way to

manage that is managing projects and cross-functional teams rather than work groups” (Blanchard et al,

1996). I believed that if the preceded necessities are met, my career and life objective should be able to

produce results as illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3 The Results of Capacity Building and Empowerment to Performance and Productivity of an Academic

11
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

It is clearly illustrated in the figure that empowerment will not only affect individual academic,

but also give impact to the organization and society. With empowered academics, not only knowledge

will be disseminated in a professional manner, but also genuine and pure as the academic owns an inner

strength that makes them sincere to the field.

Empowerment and My Students.

One of the objectives of empowering faculty member is to produce a high quality student. This

is congruence with Mayers et al (1995) which agree that empowered academic may results in high

quality student performance. I strongly agree with the premise as in my opinion, empowerment may

cultivate sense of ownership to the knowledge, where the students may seek knowledge for the sake of

finding truth and not because of being forced. It is very common nowadays that students attend classes

for examination purposes only. Yet, I want them to see beyond that. I hope that they will fall in love with

the knowledge and continuously digging for more.

Besides that, I believe that by empowering the academic, the impact would be the students are

motivated to share knowledge with others through active participation in leadership program and other

programs that gives value added to their life. Seeing their mentor behaved in such manners, I really

hope that the students will take an example of what I’m doing to empower them and try to empower

others. If they can empower and initiate change among themselves, that will be a great start of the

empowerment chain. In a way, this is also a good sign that the students are prepared to be the future

leaders of the country.

12
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

Empowerment, My Career and My Nation.

In academic world where individual effort is important, I can see that empowerment plays a big

role in encourages academic to do more than they are expected (or in their job scope). For instance, in

doing research and publication, you are on your own (even though sometimes you have team to support

you). Being an empowered academic is rather imperative in sync with the capacity and capabilities in

executing your tasks efficiently. Empowerment teaches one to cooperate with others to achieve the

organization’s goals.

As I would like to put it, empowerment will most likely produce an integrity academician. This

can be evaluated in their passion and sense of belongings to their job that will result in high

performance, for example, an academic with a lot of research and he’s doing it for the sake of research

and for the love to the field, not only because it is listed in her/ his job description. Additionally, among

the indicator of integrity among academic are they won’t plagiarize, to conduct research in most ethical

manners, good management of research funds, being fair to students regardless of their background

and avoid personal interests.

The empowerment process itself required the stakeholders to align their mission and vision as

the key ingredient. Therefore, by utilizing their knowledge, skills, and creativity towards country’s

development, academic is actually supporting national agenda on community development and future-

leaders development. When the academic are empowered enough, they should be able to serve as

country’s think tank and policy maker. As they have the knowledge and skills needed, they should give

back to the country by offering consultation or views in order to develop the country.

It is not easy to be a part of the policy makers, but the academic should realize that their words

can bring changes in the policy. Since they are reputable in their respective fields, academic should

voices out opinions for country’s betterment. An empowered academic will continuously contribute in

13
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

any ways to help the country achieve its national goals such as through writings, comments, research

that solve national problems, and cooperating with national agencies to develop the nation. More often

than not, some academic choose not to participate in organizational development plan but focusing only

on their individual work. This is a sign of un-empowered, whereby there are no elements of sharing and

initiating change inside them. Ideally, they should actually try to make a difference and initiate change,

nationally and globally through their research and services.

What can be done?

Empowerment does exist and it is more than just empty promise in liberating the leadership

within people. However, in order to succeed, it must be seen and acted as the ‘policy of management’

and continued ‘behavioral action’ that promotes a policy of inclusion in the participative decision making

process by and through harnessing the collective genius of all types of people in the department

(McNulty, 2003; McGregor, 1960). Based on the readings, I will try to suggest ways to empower

academic and faculty member by listing down the possible action can be taken by the department or

university en masse.

• Capacity building. The most crucial part in one’s career development is capacity building. It

involves the physical, mental, social and psychological needs that are basics for every employees

to execute their job. Examples given in the preceded topics are academics qualifications,

research grants, communication skills and leadership skills. The university and department

should ensure that academic gets the basic necessities first before expecting them to perform.

• Create an empowered workplace. This can be done by creating a faculty-driven departmental

environment and develop faculty who exhibit dimensions of teacher empowerment such as

14
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

these: decision making, higher status, continuous professional development, higher self-efficacy,

autonomy within boundaries, and excellence and quality as a daily practice rather than a mere

act (Cherif et al, 2010). In order to do this, one should recognize the vital rudiments of

empowerment, and then develop and implement an effective framework within which to work

towards empowerment.

• Empowerment program. Similar to training program that aims to increase knowledge, efficiency

and skills, empowerment also need a systematic program and approach in order to succeed. In

earlier topics, I discussed about strategic empowerment and how it helps in energizing people in

an organization. Empowerment is similar to a change, it will not happen by chance and have to

carefully planned and organize.

• Sharing task, authority, and accountability. All department members should take the

responsibility for the whole by ensuring that they direct their energies toward organizational

priorities. Getting everyone involved in leadership as a way of doing builds an organization’s

leadership density, which yields benefits for the whole (McNulty, 2003). However, sharing task

and authority should also come with accountability. For the process to succeed, faculty member

should understand their task and responsibility in the organization. This to let them alert on

their boundaries and limits while giving them autonomy in making decision.

• Sharing information through dialogue and feedback. Sharing information is essential to

empowering an organization. Department should hold dialogues frequently to get feedback and

share information with faculty members. It is imperative as it clarifies all stakeholders’

expectation and collective action can be taken toward achieving their common goals. Granting

access to important data and information can also foster trust within an organization. It is also a

15
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

very strong signal of transparency, trust, and respect to department members (Cherif et al,

2010).

• Facilitator of empowerment (mentoring). According to Boice (1992), mentoring supports

professional and renewal, which in turns empower the faculty and colleague. Research has

proven that mentoring increases job satisfaction and organizational socialization. The protégé

also empowered when they are paired with senior faculty member, and vice versa the mentor

feel renewed when they share their power, advocacy of collegiality (Luna & Cullen, 1995), and

expertise with junior faculty member and colleague.

• Commitment to ideas, not personalities or position. Leaders “are only as powerful as the ideas

they can communicate” (Bennis and Nanus 1997). However, ideas can only flown in organization

with minimal bureaucracy, management layers, departmental silos, and other barriers (Cherif et

al, 2010). Every stakeholder should commit to continual improvement and pursuit of the vision

and mission of the department rather than individual mission and goals. Each idea should be

considered in making decision, be it comes from the leader or the followers.

• More self-directed teams. Encouraging more self-directed teams in the department is important

despite the top down hierarchy that is very common in academe. The department chair should

establish and retain favorable conditions for the group to work and exercise empowering

behaviors such as self-reinforcement, self-observation, self-evaluation and diagnosis (Blanchard,

Carlos, and Randolph 1996; Black 1987). Self directed teams normally are flexible and proactive

in working for the same goals. They are empowered and allowed to make decision that will help

them achieve their objective. The leader in the department should encourage each team and in

fact each department member to share their work with other to turn this into reality.

16
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

Conclusion

It is an honor to work in an organization that treasures its members. Moreover if the

department give equal chance to everyone to shine and voice out their opinions and ideas. Faculty that

works in such department are most definitely will be more effective and efficient; they also feel better

about themselves, their leader, their department, and their institution. The most important thing is the

sense of ownership towards their career and organization.

Through empowerment, I believe my potential can be explored, and my ideas will not be left

out. It is rather important that by empowering myself, I will have the sense of ownership and the

obligations, and responsibilities that go with the rights. Faculty empowerment is an important role for

educational leaders as we strive to meet the student’s needs, educational institutions, and the

community that we serve.

17
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

References

Arenas, J., Bleau, T., Eckvahl, S., Gray, H., Hamner, P., & Powell, K. (2009, February 18). Empowering
Faculty to Facilitate Distance Education. Retrieved August 19, 2010, from Academic Leadership: The
Online Journal: http://www.academicleadership.org/emprical_research/545_printer.shtml

Asnarulkhadi, A. S., & Fariborz, A. (2009). Empowerment as an Approach for Community Development in
Malaysia. World Rural Observations , 1 (2), 63-68.

Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist , 37, 122-215.

Bennis, W. G., & Nanus, B. (1997). Leaders: The Strategies for taking charge. New York: Harper and Row.

Black, P. (1987). The empowered manager: Positive political skills at work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Blanchard, K. (1999). The heart of a Leader: Insight on the art of influence. Tulsa: Honor Books.

Blanchard, K., Carlos, J., & Randolph, A. (1996). Empowerment takes more than a minute. New York:
Barnes & Nobles Books.

Boice, R. (1992). Lessons learned about mentoring. In M. D. Sorcinelli, & A. E. Austin, Developing new
and junior faculty (pp. 51-62). San Francisco: Josey-Bass.

Cherif, A., Ofori-Amoah, B., Stefurak, L., Roze, M., Murkar, K., Hanna, B. W., et al. (2010, April 16).
Strengthening the academic department through empowerment of faculty and staff. Retrieved August
19, 2010, from Academic Leadership: The Online Journal:
http://www.academicleadership.org/emprical_research/Strengthening_the_Academic_Department_Thr
ough_Empowerment_of_Faculty_and_Staff_printer.shtml

Fetterman, D. M., & Wandersman, A. (2005). Empowerment evaluation principles in practice. New York:
Guildford Press.

Israel, B. A., Checkoway, B., Shulz, A., & Zimmerman, M. (1994). Health education and community
empowerment: Conceptualizing and measuring perceptions of individual, organisational, and
community control. Health Education Quarterly , 21 (2), 149-170.

Luna, G., & Cullen, D. L. (1995). Empowering the Faculty: Mentoring Redirected and Renewed. ERIC
Digest .

Mayers, P., Riccordati, T., & Hohmeier, D. (1995). System supported teaching and learning to improve
student performance, satisfaction, and retention. In H. V. Roberts, Academic initiatives in total quality
for Higher education. Milwaukee: ASQC Quality Press.

Mayo, M., & Craig, G. (1995). Community participation and empowerment: The human face of structural
adjustment or tools for democratic transformation? In G. Craig, & M. Mayo, Community Empowerment:
A reader in participation and development. London: Zed Books.

18
Empowerment and My Profession:
Implication for Performance and Productivity Syahidatul Khafizah binti Mohd Hajaraih (GS27998)

McGregor, D. (1960). The Human Side of Enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill.

McNulty, R. (2003). Making leadership everyone's responsibility. ASCD-Education Update , 45 (7), 2.

Mohajer, N., & Earnest, J. (2009). Youth empowerment for the most vulnerable: A model used on the
pedagogy of Freire and experiences in the field. Health Education , 109 (5), 424-438.

Rahim, M. S. (2010). Knowledge of the profession, andragogy and human resource development:
Implications for community empowerment. Seminar on Education and Community Empowerment (pp. 1-
19). Semarang: Department of Out of School Education.

Rappaport, J. (1981). In praise of paradox: A social policy of empowerment over prevention. American
Journal of Community Psychology , 9 (1), 1-25.

Short, P. M., & Greer, J. T. (1997). Leadership in Empowered Schools: Themes from Innovative Efforts.
New Jersey: Pearson Education.

Swift, C., & Levin, G. (1987). Empowerment: An emerging mental health technology. Journal of Primary
Prvention , 8 (1/2), 71-94.

UNESCO. (n.d.). Technology and learning: definitions. Retrieved august 25, 2010, from
www.unesco.org/education/educprog/lwf/doc/portfolio/definitions.htm

Wallerstein, N. (2006). What is the evidence of effectiveness of empowerment to improve health?

Retrieved August 22, 2010, from Health Evidence Network Report:
www.euro.who.int/Document/E88086.pdf

19