Service Learning

CHAPTER 1: Improving Social Welfare through Service Learning -- CHAPTER 2: Positive Implications on the Environment -- CHAPTER 3: Improving Education through Service Learning -- CHAPTER 4: Imparting Social Change -- CHAPTER 5: Global Citizenship and Service Learning

CHAPTER 1: The Foundations of Service Learning -- CHAPTER 2: Giving Something to Gain Something -- CHAPTER 3: Understanding the impact of Service Learning -- CHAPTER 4: How Cultural Differences and Understanding Come into Play -- CHAPTER 5: Understanding the Implications of Diversity

While campus engagement with the local community is generally viewed in a positive light, in reality these collaborations are more complex. Presenting a variety of contemporary models and frameworks for community engagement, this book is distinguished by its unique emphasis on campus-community partnerships from the perspective of the community. Bolstered by concrete data, the text addresses the impact of a variety of service-learning arrangements on local communities and focuses on the experiences, both positive and negative, of the community organization. Integrating theoretical, historical, ethical, and practical frameworks, the book examines in depth such emerging models as global service-learning, social entrepreneurship, and experiential philanthropy. Vivid case examples drawing from real-life programs that have been implemented in the United States and abroad bring these models to life. While the book emphasizes the perspectives of the communities served, it also encompasses the experiences of nonprofit organizations, students, and faculty. Students, faculty, and administrators who are engaged in campus-community partnerships--particularly in disciplines that are grounded in community-based learning, such as social work, human services, sociology, and public service studies--will find this book to be an important resource. Includes extensive resources for more in-depth study

Randy Stoecker has been "practicing" forms of community-engaged scholarship, including service learning, for thirty years now, and he readily admits, "Practice does not make perfect." The author worries about the contradictions, unrealized potential, and unrecognized urgency of the causes as well as the risks and rewards of this work. Stoecker questions the prioritization and theoretical/philosophical underpinnings of the core concepts of service learning: 1. learning, 2. service, 3. community, and 4. change. By "liberating" service learning, he suggests reversing the prioritization of the concepts, starting with change, then community, then service, and then learning. In doing so, he clarifies the benefits and purpose of this work, arguing that it will create greater pedagogical and community impact.