"Service-learning has the promise to be transformative for students, faculty, and communities, and this book reflects that promise...This book is in a class by itself, and will be the 'go-to' text for courses focused on service-learning..."

~ Jeffrey Howard, Editor, Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning

From the preface, “Disturbing Normalizations of Service-Learning” by Dan W. Butin

“…teaching is a question of strategy.  That is perhaps the only place where we actually get any experience in strategy, although we talk a lot about it” (Spivak, 1989, p. 146)

Service-learning in higher education is a potentially transformative pedagogical practice and theoretical orientation; it is, in Spivak’s words, a question of strategy.  By this I mean that service-learning challenges our static notions of teaching and learning, decenters our claim to the labels of “students” and “teachers,” and exposes and explores the linkages between power, knowledge and identity.  Moreover, service-learning provokes by moving against the grain of traditional practice in higher education: it is a deeply engaging, local, and impactful practice.

 This book examines the limits and possibilities of positioning service-learning as such a strategic practice.  The contributors to this book explore and expand upon the tensions, troubles, and potentials of a service-learning that is dangerous to the educational status quo in higher education.   By dangerous, I mean a pedagogical practice and theoretical orientation that provokes us to more carefully examine, rethink, and reenact the visions, policies, and practices of our classrooms and educational institutions.  By dangerous, I mean a pedagogical practice and theoretical orientation that forces us – as faculty, administrators, and policymakers – to confront the assumptions under why we  teach and learn and the implications for doing so in one way rather than another. 

Table of Contents

Purchase the book

This book was the featured library item at the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse in September, 2005

• Guest Editor. “Service-Learning and Social Justice Education” Equity & Excellence in Education, 40(2)

• In Press. “Service-Learning” In Encyclopedia of the Social and Cultural Foundations of Education, edited by Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. NY: SAGE Publications. à read the draft

• 2007.  “Civic Engagement.” In Encyclopedia of the American High School, edited by Kathryn Borman, Spencer Cahill, and Bridget Cotner.  New York:  Greenwood Publishing. à read the draft

• 2006. “The Limits of Service-Learning in Higher Education”, The Review of Higher Education, 29(4).

• 2006, Guest Editor: “Future Directions for Service-Learning in Higher Education”, International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 18(1).à read the introduction

•  2006. “Disciplining Service-Learning: Institutionalization and the Case for Community Studies”, International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 18(1). à read the article

• 2005. “’I Don’t Buy It’: Student Resistance, Social Justice, and Identity Construction”, Inventio 7(1) [Special Issue on Social Activism]  à read the article as a pdf

• 2005. “Service-Learning is Dangerous”, National Teaching & Learning Forum, 14(4). Accessible at: http://www.ntlf.com/. à read the article as a pdf

• 2003. “Of What Use Is It: Multiple Conceptualizations of Service-Learning in Education”, In Teachers College Record, 105(9), pp. 1674-1692. à read the article

What Is Service-Learning?

• Definitions of Service-Learning

• National and Community Service Trust Act Definition

• Six Models for Service-Learning

 Limitations of Service-Learning

• Stanley Fish. (2003). "Aim Low" Chronicle of Higher Education

• Joseph Kahne and Joe Westheimer. (1996). In the Service of What? The Politics of Service-Learning, Phi Delta Kappan.

• John Eby. (1998). Why Service-Learning is Bad

• Harry Boyte and James Farr. (1997). The Work of Citizenship and the Problem of Service-Learning.

• Ivan Illich. (1968). To Hell with Good Intentions

 Syllabus Construction w/Service-Learning

• Preparing the Syllabus: The Fundamentals of Course Construction

• Program Characteristics of Effective Service-Learning

• Principles of Good Practice in Community Service Learning Pedagogy

• Service-Learning and Reflection

• Facilitating Reflection- A Manual for Leaders and Educators

SYLLABI

• National Service-Learning Clearinghouse

• Campus Compact

• MA Campus Compact

• World Lecture Hall - huge resource of syllabi in all disciplines

• syllabi about Higher Education

 Publication Opportunities

• The Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

• The Chronicle of Higher Education

• The Journal of Public Service and Outreach

• NSEE Quarterly (National Society of Experiential Education)

• Journal of Excellence in College Teaching

• National Teaching and Learning Forum

• JCAL - Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning

• International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering

 Research Opportunities

• Grant Opportunities; more grants

Service-Learning Organizations

• Campus Compact

• National Service-Learning Clearinghouse

• National Society for Experiential Education

• Service Learning Clearinghouse Project

• Service-Learning Home on the Web

Service-Learning Resources

• Essential Readings and Links

• Statistics

• The Scholarship of Engagement Online -- Clearinghouses and Review Board

• UC Berkeley Service-Learning & Civic Engagement Research Directory Home

• Discipline-Specific Service-Learning Resources for Higher Education

• Basics and History of Service-learning Movement

• Transcending Disciplines, Reinforcing Curricula: Why Faculty Teach With Service Learning (136K pdf) by Rudy M. Garcia and Gail Robinson. This 12-page research brief summarizes the findings and implications of a 2004 study of 200 faculty at 20 community colleges to identify factors that motivate faculty to include service-learning in their courses.