Youth Mentoring as Service-Learning: Student-Teachers' Ethical Accounts of the Self

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Moments: The Experiences of Service-Learning That Shape Our Identities of Self

Abstract

In the context growing social inequality, one-to-one youth mentoring is a mode of service-learning that potentially facilitates student-teachers’ appropriation of social justice and inclusive pedagogies, and highlights the ethical nature of service-learning. Following Butler’s ethical philosophy and Foucault’s notion of ethics as one’s relationship to oneself, this paper examines student-teachers’ accounts of themselves in relation to the other, as they engaged in mentoring economically and academically disadvantaged youth from a high school in Hong Kong. The critical discursive analysis of student-teachers’ written reflections revealed misrecognitions and discursive impasses in their ethical relations and identities. The study has implications for understanding student-teacher reflections and for grappling with the tensions lurking within service-learning and teacher education for social justice.

Author

• Margaret Lo, University of Hong Kong