Asserts that the use of journals in a service-learning course is a way to motivate first-year students to be more introspective and reflective and to document changes they undergo during their experience. Finds that students will reflect on how service-learning affects their evolving identities and their clarification of career goals. (Contains 14…

Joint service-learning programs of Wake Forest University and the University of Texas-El Paso are working to develop an anthropologically-informed service model for/with the authors' Universities, our students, and our community colleagues. Building on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and experience leading experiential programs, the model results…

This article furthers research and theory on the initiation and development of service-learning partnerships. It identifies three paths of engagement between university and community agencies: tentative engagement, aligned engagement, and committed engagement. This conceptualization helps to understand how service-learning partnerships evolve over…

A multi-campus research survey of undergraduate students enrolled in service-learning courses asked students to describe how the service-learning course was designed in terms of the degree of integration of the learning and service component, the nature of the reflection activities, and the quality of the learning experience. Results indicated…

The authors describe a social approach to learning in community service learning that extends the contributions of three theoretical bodies of scholarship on learning: social constructionism, critical pedagogy, and community service learning. Building on the assumptions about learning described in each of these areas, engagement, identity, and…

In this article, I argue that the social studies methods course is an appropriate place to practice and reflect upon doing democracy. I review the literature on kinds of citizens the methods course might support. I consider pre-service teachers' prior and present experiences with doing democracy. I pose a framework for doing democracy centered on…

The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to develop a working definition of service-learning, identify the best practices of service-learning in the context of Christian colleges and universities and, based upon that information, develop a model for replication. The study undertaken included: (a) examination of the findings of…

Its proponents argue that the important cognitive effect of service-learning is increasing political knowledge. In this article, I enumerate additional skills of political thinking relevant to a civically engaged service-learning curriculum in political science. These skills include helping students: 1) develop interest in politics, 2) learn what…

Middle school teachers are accountable for helping young adolescents master a daunting number of basic skills and concepts. On the other hand, they are also expected to help their students develop a social conscience during what is arguably the most egocentric stage of their social development. This article presents a service learning project that…

The intent of a liberal arts education is to expose students to a broad array of ideas and subject matter. Its perceived weakness involves the possible lack of preparedness for the workplace; a liberal arts education is deliberately not vocational. To bridge that divide colleges and universities, in cooperation with industry, non-profits, and the…

This article reviews the literature on community service and activism, particularly in youth, using the theoretical approach provided by an identity projects framework. This framework allows for an examination of the contextual and experiential factors that contribute to the emergence and maintenance of an identity project of service or activism.…

"No Baby Left Behind" was created to have an impact on the school readiness of children in the community today and in the future. Each year, there are an increasing number of students who have learning difficulties. Many of these problems are preventable. Accidents, poor nutrition (of the mother and/or child), drug use, alcohol use, and lack of…

This article presents an overview of a community development service learning programme operating in the Greek Ionian Island community of Farsa Village. The philosophical approach of the Kefalonia Program is one of "threading the past with the future". It seeks to combine traditional knowledge with contemporary technologies in order to…

This paper describes how an after school elementary arts program served as a teaching lab for undergraduate pre-service teachers. The program was designed and implemented by an art education faculty member as an undergraduate service-learning course and research investigation on the outcomes of an inquiry-based K-12 art curriculum. It also became…

Assessing student perceptions and opinions of their university education is now standard in quality assurance processes for learning and teaching. In Australia, the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) has been institutionalised as a national survey of graduand opinion and is used as the key indicator of tertiary teaching quality. A little-used…