Participatory Education As Empowerment: A Case Study On Loss, Grief And Empowerment

Authors : Keith Miller

Pages : 51-60

Doi:10.17275/per.15.spi.1.5

View : 13 | Download : 11

Publication Date : 2015-11-30

Article Type : Research

Abstract :As Freire indicated, for education to be successful, it needs to be participatory where both student and teacher recognise the educational capacity within each other. In order for education to be participatory, there needs to be empowerment of the recipients of the education. This is particularly true when the education is delivered cross-culturally and in a community setting. A community can be defined as a group of people who live and work cooperatively together. Education in a community setting empowers both individuals but also the community as a whole. Delivery of education to a community comprises both insiders and outsiders. Insiders are the community members who know intuitively how the community operates. Outsiders do not know experientially how a community functions. When outsiders bring expertise into a community, it is the insiders who can adapt that expertise and make it relevant to that community. Seasons for Healing was an educational loss and grief program implemented in Aboriginal communities in South Australia. Incorporating an interpretive, yet also critical and reflexive ethnography, expertise from outsiders combined with experiential insight from insiders enabled people from Aboriginal communities to be empowered through participant education. As people within communities participated in their own education through the Seasons for Healing Program, an awareness of their own empowerment developed.
Keywords : Participant education, empowerment, Seasons for Healing, community, insiders, outsiders