Service-Learning Influences Teacher Candidate Development of Dispositions for Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility

• In Event: 65.079 - Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: 65.079-5 - Service-Learning as Pedagogy, Civic Engagement, and Reflection

Abstract

We examine developmental trajectories of teacher candidate dispositions in an introductory service-learning course and the final capstone course of a five year teacher education program. The service learning is a signature element of a thriving partnership between an urban school serving low-income, multilingual, multiethnic students and families and its university neighbor, which attracts undergraduate and graduate students with little personal firsthand experience with racial, ethnic and linguistic diversity, or of poverty and its challenges. This examination informs programmatic design for longer-term learning outcomes within a five year teacher education program, with regard to reflective practice, sense of self in relation to diversity, civic and social awareness and engagement, and struggling with and reconciling emerging conceptions of social justice.

Authors

• Stephanie Burrell Storms, Fairfield University

• Patricia E. Calderwood, Fairfield University