As a defining aspect of service-learning and civic engagement, relationships can exist among faculty members, students, community organizations, community members, and administrators on campus. This research developed procedures to measure several aspects of these relationships. Investigators collected information from 20 experienced…

Everyone is in the midst of an explosion in the popularity of knitting. Shifting the traditional stereotype of what a knitter should be, the youth of today have taken up knitting as a tactile and embodied form of connectivity. In a rapidly changing and unpredictable world, characterized by, among other factors, the unprecedented expansion of…

This paper is exploratory in nature and our research goal is to develop a conceptualization of "learning as community service" in a new media context. The setting for the study is an after-school program involving middle school children in a First Nations community. In the after-school program, children developed knowledge about (1) their…

Using the National Standards' 5 C's as a framework, the authors examine student success in Spanish community service-learning at making connections across academic disciplines, to information and viewpoints that they encounter in the community, and to concrete social action. We use data from students, instructors, and community partners involved…

This evaluation study provides descriptive information about the implementation and outcomes of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) program in West Virginia, from September 2012 through May 2013. The report draws on information from online surveys of directors of 30 CCLC programs and from school teachers for 4,102 participating…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate final projects in a freshman leadership course (combining grounding in leadership theories with a service-learning component) to determine what students learned about leadership, themselves as developing leaders, and leading in the civic community, and how deeply they learned these concepts. Students found…

American colleges and universities have historically sought to promote an enlightened citizenry. In the early 1980s many felt that this civic purpose was in danger of being lost. What unfolded was a widespread educational reform movement aimed at reasserting the public and democratic purpose of American higher education. This article traces the…

One of the major selling points of service-learning courses is their potential to mutually benefit communities, universities, and students. Although a great deal of research reports numerous pedagogical and personal benefits for students--from improved grades and increased civic engagement to increased understanding and appreciation of…

The Internet offers opportunities for electronic trading in the global marketplace and as such it can provide substantial benefits to a business. Despite this, the rate of adoption of e-commerce by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Australia has been slower than anticipated and these benefits are not being realised (Pease & Rowe,…

Romantic relationships matter for adolescents. Experiences in romantic relationships facilitate key areas of personal and interpersonal development, however, problems in romantic relationships and lack of positive role models can lead to increased risk of developing unhealthy relationship patterns that can persist into adulthood. The goals of this…

This article argues for approaching pedagogical outcomes as ends-in-view that guide, but do not determine or limit, pedagogical possibilities. In this article, the authors draw from their experience in a senior-level, interdisciplinary service-learning course called Literacy and Community to demonstrate that the moments of conflict generated by…

In this article I explain how I combined service learning, public-good work, and research in Guatemala. This path has not been easy. Indeed, it has been risky because the time invested in public-good work and teaching field classes could have detracted from research productivity. Taking a risk under the current and traditional academic model at…

On January 19, 2009, the day before his historic inauguration, President Obama and his wife, Michelle, commemorated Martin Luther King Day by volunteering for various community service projects around the Washington, DC, area. A record number of Americans also participated in the King Day of Service, joining in over 13,000 projects, more than…

The potential contribution of co-curricular service-learning to develop engaged citizens is relatively unexplored. Much of the available research on college-level service-learning has studied the effect of service-learning in single courses on a variety of student outcome measures and there are at least two large, multi-campus studies of…

The author, who has served as an external program reviewer for 17 sociology program reviews, gives his perspective on the views that academic administrators have of sociology. On the plus side, administrators view sociology as a discipline that teaches many students; values and incorporates diversity; produces research aimed at ameliorating…