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Empowerment is a multilevel and multidimensional construct, which refers to the capacity to gain an understanding of and control over personal circumstances and social and political forces in order to achieve goals, improve living conditions, and gain mastery over one’s life. Empowerment has been conceptualized as both a process and an outcome, on a continuum from a state of powerlessness to a state of realized power. Individuals, organizations, and communities can become empowered.
The term empowerment is widely used in fields ranging from public health, social work, and community development to education, economics, and business management (Schutz 2019). Empowerment processes and outcomes look and function differently depending on the context, field, and level of analysis involved. Consequently, definitions of empowerment vary somewhat in focus and detail from field to field. Nevertheless, core characteristics of empowerment have...
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References
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Condren, M. (2023). Empowerment. In: Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_230-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_230-1
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