Community based learning and education can be viewed from at least two perspectives. One is a lens that focuses on engagement with service to the community, with all of the explicit and implicit values reflected by those contexts and activities. Another focuses on the learning and associated processes, objects for consideration in and of…

Many iterations of community based learning employ models, such as consciousness raising groups, cultural circles, and participatory action research. In all of them, learning is a deliberate part of an explicit educational activity. This article explores another realm of community learning: the informal learning that results from volunteering in…

Many adults have a desire to give back to the communities that have supported and nurtured them, and they find their own ways to do so. Community based learning is but one mechanism for making connections that enable one to satisfy the aspiration to address the many problems of concern. It is a methodology that can be employed in the classroom,…

In this article, the author states his belief that community based learning among adults can be a powerful force for encouraging personal development and for strengthening democracy in this multicultural, globally interdependent, battered world. To do so, however, it needs to pervade all the curricula, degree programs, learning contracts, and…