This week, I will dive back on some issues I left behind. Plus, I will delve into some aspects that need to be addressed at this point in the project. Finally, I will discuss the creation of the mid-term survey and its meaning.

Last week, I described the concept of moral responsibility. I have also stated that “responsibility is often referred to as related to emancipatory praxis”. But what is emancipation? According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to emancipate is “to free from restraint, control, or the power of another” or more specifically, “to free from any controlling influence (such as traditional mores or beliefs)”. In this sense, being responsible, even in an academic project, gives us a chance to become emancipated, thus empowered. Quoting one of the most influential works on Empowerment Theory (Zimmerman, 2000):
“Empowerment […] directs attention toward health, adaptation, competence, and natural helping systems. It includes the perspective that many social problems exist due to unequal distribution of, and access to, resources. Some individuals are best served by mutual help, helping others, or working for their rights, rather than having their needs fulfilled by a benevolent professional (Gallant, Cohen, & Wolff, 1985).”
As illustrated by these well-known scholars, the connection between emancipation and empowerment is very close, so close that in our project I will regard them as the same process. Some scholars made a clear distinction between the two concepts, I would suggest reading Karolak, 2013. Also, I would highly recommend reading “Critical Citizens for an Intercultural World” by Guilherme, as she has delved into the discourse of “empowerment” in the Critical Pedagogy field.
Circling back to our project, we can now apply this renewed concept to our objectives. The topics we choose for all the groups are to some extent explicit in their relation to the status quo. Some of them are even shared with the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). Being so, everyone is encouraged to think about their own situation and how it could be changed for the better. Moreover, the discussion is happening in a multicultural context, which makes each participant aware of the situation from the inside and the outside. In other words, our status quo does not necessarily need to be like it is, the most evident proof is that elsewhere is slightly different! For this reason, it could be argued that the status quo can change through community engagement. This is how (foreign) language education can be empowering.
But, is this process actually happening in the groups? Well, even though I cannot read every single message that is sent, I would say, yes, at least in some of them. For this reason, we added a section on social responsibility on the mid-term survey. This survey (and the next one) will be the central empirical data, which will be used to analyse how NoLBrick education can foster empowerment in language learners.
At this point, I want to give my opinion on why empowerment is not an automatic process even when the topics are so intrinsically tethered to our current situation(s). First of all, I argue that topics such as Japanese language education or Environmental protection are not always well understood. What I mean is that even though they are well connected to our life (as Japanese language learners or simply as dwellers of the Earth), we are not able to recognise problems within them. This surely requires what Freire called conscientização (conscientization) (Freire, 2000), even if the context between Freire’s reality was far different from ours. Secondly, people are not always well-informed on the specifics of different fields and obviously, this can lead everyone to accept the status quo as it is. Plus, a lot of young people are now disillusioned with democracy following political populism and the financial crisis that started in 2007 (Centre for the Future of Democracy, 2020, p. 42 and p. 56). Lastly, I believe that is not always clear how to socially act, let alone change institutions or the social structure.
Thank you for reading this week as well, I hope I will soon be able to get into some more concrete situations that are happening as I type.

References
emancipate. 2021. In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved March 1, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emancipate
Foa, R.S., Klassen, A., Slade, M., Rand, A. and R. Collins (2020) The Global Satisfaction with Democracy Report 2020. Cambridge: Centre for the Future of Democracy.
Freire, P. (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Guilherme, M. M. (2002) Critical Citizens for an Intercultural World: Foreign Language Education as Cultural Politics. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Karolak, M. (2013) “Between Women’s Empowerment and Emancipation. “, Arabian Humanities, 1. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/cy/2108 (visited 03/1/2021).
Zimmerman, M.A. (2000) Empowerment Theory. In: Rappaport J., Seidman E. (eds) Handbook of Community Psychology. Boston: Springer.