A Rewriting of Self Through the Social/Intellectual Spaces of Service-Learning

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Engagement, Reflection, and Identity Development Through Service-Learning

Abstract

This paper explores the empowerment and self-authorship of marginalized students by investigating the service-learning experiences of three African American, male, urban high school seniors through a theoretical framework of critical theory. The intention was to consider the negotiation of power and knowledge that may empower students, redefining their experience of schooling and their identities as learners. Student participants describe their self-authorship and development as change agents as they negotiated the complicated and challenging learning contexts of real life (i.e., their neighborhoods). Data analysis revealed how service-learning legitimized lived experience and enabled the re-writing of self through the construction of new social/intellectual spaces. Participants’ experience highlights a framework for encountering transformational moments for the re-authoring of self and community identities.

Authors

• Jaime Winans

• Bryant Griffith, Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi

• Douglas J. Loveless, James Madison University