Advancing the Theory and Measurement of Collective Empowerment: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Grounded Theory, a qualitative research method, was used to fully describe the construct of empowerment and its measurement in racially and ethnically diverse urban and rural neighborhoods. Forty-nine grass roots experts, primarily from six communities in Texas, participated via semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Observational data were also collected. Results revealed that the framework of collective empowerment has two main dimensions: ten processes necessary for developing greater empowerment and eight long-term outcomes that result from the process strategies. The two main dimensions of collective empowerment are cyclically, rather than linearly, related. While the results are unique to the communities studied because of the nature of the analysis, the process by which they were elucidated can be replicated in any setting. These findings suggest that the construct of collective empowerment can be both operationalized and evaluated at the community level.