Exploring Harm Through Service-Learning and Community Engagement: A Case Study

• In Event: The Role of Critical Service Learning in the Fight for Equity and Justice

Abstract

Service learning, a pedagogical strategy combining academic learning with community service, is near ubiquitous in higher education. While scholarship has demonstrated positive effects of the pedagogy on college students’ learning, there has been an unequal consideration of understanding how service learning facilitates change in the communities it purports to serve. Despite scholars arguing that service learning has been shaped by white supremacy and neoliberalism, there also has been an unequal consideration of its racial and economic realities. Drawing on case study research, this study investigates service learning, including its racial and economic realities, from the perspectives of a range of powerful community voices. This study aims to (re)imagine community engagement practices with those who have been left out of research.

Author

• Carmine Perrotti, Brown University