1. Introduction

Power and empowerment are intricately connected, yet, complex concepts which can have profound implications on the experiences of both teachers and students in the classroom. Being recognized as authoritative individuals with expertise in subject areas qualifies teachers to assume a power. A crucial aspect of teachers' professional knowledge is perceiving and operationalizing their power in a manner that does not oppress or inhibit students' creativity, critical thinking or independent thought but rather, they use their power to empower students. Beginning with a brief exploration of the concept of power in terms of its various conceptualizations and influences on school life, an account of how teachers can embrace their power in classrooms to empower students will be offered.

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and eproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
