For over a decade, Jobs for the Future has worked with school districts committed to help high schoolers make the transition to adulthood. Key program principles include rigor and relevance, community-connected learning, small learning communities, and safe passage to adulthood. A program in North Clackamas, Oregon, is described. (MLH)

Research in language learning and general education supports the idea that addressing the "communities" goal of the national standards for foreign language learning in the language classroom can be an effective way to teach the target language. This article gives examples of how community-based learning in the foreign language classroom…

To nurture the spirit, young people have to participate in activities that help them make meaningful connections. They must be guided in real-life situations to develop a moral code and sense of civic pride. Service learning is a spiritual, esteem-enhancing affair that often blurs lines between giver and receiver. Compassion is learned by hands-on…

Service learning is positioned at the intersection of two major concerns of education: the balance between active and traditional learning and the axis of public and private sectors. As such, it can be used to address a variety of educational issues, including instructional strategy, undergraduate research, diversity, civic and social…

Evaluated a service learning course that matched preservice teachers and older adult literacy learners and aimed to address widespread attrition in adult education programs and the need for multicultural education for preservice teachers. Data revealed two essential elements of successful, reciprocal learning relationships: connecting across…

Considers the question of whether art therapy is an idea or a profession. Presents a brief overview of professions, the benefits and consequences of professions, challenges facing the profession of art therapy, and ideas for the future. Discusses service learning as a way of helping students become concerned about making a difference. (Contains 20…

Poverty-stricken Honduras offers unlimited service-learning opportunities. In one international school, service learning has become part of school culture. Innovative hospital and shelter projects have transformative potential for the school's aristocratic students, who are likely to become Honduras's future leaders and shape the country's future.…

Investigates how student and community participants come to understand diversity in the context of service-learning. Study examines the perspectives of student participants in a service-learning class and community participants from community service organizations. Findings suggest the importance of relationships that are developed initially…

Describes how the author's eighth-grade language arts inquiry-based instruction blossomed into student-based community learning, with students defining and seeking their own relevant goals, bringing the community to school with an art exhibit of tolerance, volunteering at a nearby elementary school, creating community gardens to fulfill a…

Service learning is not immune from legal problems. In 1993, the third Circuit Court of Appeals quashed a lawsuit claiming a school's mandatory public-service requirement violated the 1st and 13th amendments. The most recent case was pursued against a New York district whose modest public-service requirement supposedly forced students into…

Identifies questions and issues related to the "engaged" campus, detailing organizational issues and institutional impacts related to service learning and highlighting: issues of definition and language; the definition of an engaged institution; the role of affiliate groups and national reports; issues of infrastructure and support; the challenges…

Service learning practitioners must devote more resources to systematic, scientific assessment of service learning outcomes across students, faculty, institutions, and communities. Provides recommendations for generating meaningful information about service learning, including: evaluating hypotheses derived from theory, using multiple-item…

Discusses service learning research, emphasizing: why institutions are interested in service learning; service learning to promote community involvement; college presidents' role in promoting service learning; creating the capacity for change; and a research agenda. Emphasizes how much can be gained from communication between higher education…

Studied the impact of a seminar on environmental problem solving among 39 alumni who took the course between 1980 and 1997. Respondents' reflections on how the course and its service learning activities affected their later activities are used to make recommendations for maximizing the benefits and minimizing the frustrations of seminar…

Three educators discuss the role of the university in engaging with society, focusing on these issues: student service and service learning; the university as an agent of public service; building capacities for service within the community; faculty engagement in the community; and responding to community needs with the same vigor as responding to…