The decline in civic engagement has prompted scholars and policymakers to explore the role of education. One approach gaining traction is mandatory community service, which requires middle and high school students to complete a set number of community service hours as a condition for graduation. However, evidence on the long-term effects of such…

Students entering Tulane University in 2006, 2007, and 2008, the years following Hurricane Katrina, were surveyed soon after arriving on campus and again after they had been at the university for two years. Attitudes toward a new public service graduation requirement, established after the storm, remained positive after students had completed two…

Based on the assumption that all young people and their communities would benefit from students' active participation in community endeavours, some Canadian provinces and US states have included community involvement activities graduation requirement. Debates continue over whether students should be "forced" to volunteer. Ontario's…

As New Orleans began to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, Tulane University also began its recovery process. A new initiative in the recovery was the establishment of a public service graduation requirement for undergraduate students. Attitudes toward the requirement were assessed for 290 first-year and 257 advanced students in fall 2006. The…

This article presents the findings from a narrative inquiry exploring the perceived outcomes associated with a high school service-learning graduation requirement from a diverse group of college students. In particular, we were interested in participants' stories related to their experiences meeting the requirement, the meaning they made of the…

In 1999, the Ontario provincial government introduced into its high school curriculum a requirement that students complete 40 h of volunteer community service before graduation. At the same time, the high school curriculum was shortened from five years to four. Consequently, the 2003 graduating class of Ontario high school students contained two…