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A Chameleon with a Complex:
Searching for Transformation in International Service-Learning
Richard Kiely
University of Georgia
This article reports findings from a longitudinal case study investigating how students experience per-spective transformation from their participation in international service-learning program with an explicit social justice orientation. Findings indicate that each student experienced profound changes in their world-view in at least one of six dimensions: political, moral, intellectual, personal, spiritual, and cultural. Importantly, the study found that students who initially expressed a willingness to change their lifestyle and work for social justice experienced ongoing conflict and struggle in their attempts to trans-late their critical awareness into meaningful action.
This research draws from literature on the diffusion and adoption of innovations to explore the theoreti-cal foundation for research on faculty as adopters of pedagogical innovation. This researchÕs purpose was to determine the characteristics of faculty who engage in innovative pedagogy, specifically commu-nity service learning (CSL). The researchers analyzed faculty responses from 32 structured interviews completed at a large metropolitan, southwestern university. Results suggest that faculty who engage in CSL pedagogy share many attitudes, beliefs, and values about teaching, learning, and community. CSL, respondents said, satisfies various faculty/teaching, student/learning, and community/nonprofit needs. Sustaining faculty participation was noted as a significant challenge in perpetuating CSL efforts; how-ever, results suggest a learning-driven model enables a self-perpetuating process that involves increas-ing faculty numbers to effect cultural change in the university.
This paper examines the challenges faced as higher education institutions consider integrating their com-mitment to service with their commitment to diversity efforts. Findings from four case studies of small-and medium-size private institutions explore the connections and divergences among institutional mis-sion, campus leadership, curriculum integration, and organizational structure as contexts within which integration efforts emerge.1
The authors describe a social approach to learning in community service learning that extends the con-tributions of three theoretical bodies of scholarship on learning: social constructionism, critical peda-gogy, and community service learning. Building on the assumptions about learning described in each of these areas, engagement, identity, and community are key concepts through which learning can be ques-tioned and evaluated. The authors offer assessment concepts based on the social approach, such as priv-ileging the absent, engaging resistance, and terms for identity and practice. Techniques for assessing learning are also included, such as using videotape and cross-group focus groups.
Does service-learning contribute to the privatizing or downsizing of citizenship practices, a claim recently leveled by Crenson and Ginsberg (2002), or can service-learning be understood and practiced as a vital anti-dote to this troubling trend? The author revisits a theme often raised within the service-learning and civic education literature regarding the relationship between service-learning and citizenship development, par-ticularly, the apolitical nature of most service activities and student outcomes. By asserting the importance of intentionality and transparency, the author claims that service-learning activities find their value to citi-zenship development when: space is created for political dialogue; the nature of service is deconstructed; a community assets outlook is adopted; students are asked to refine their perspective-taking skills; and service-learning is understood within a broader movement of institutional reform.
Last Updated May 12, 2004
