Dreams, Theories, and Pleasure: Providing an Ideological Backing for Critical Service-Learning

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

Abstract

Responding both to calls for increased theoretical engagement on critical service-learning and Butin’s (2015) call for critical service-learning practitioners to think backwards from practice to theory, this paper establishes the need to consider ideological perspectives before and during the practice of critical service-learning. Poststructuralist perspectives on agency are synthesized with critical perspectives to develop an approach to a contemporary social justice orientation. The paper concludes by articulating the concept of micro-revolutions, which are the small moments in which people are able to act outside of the constraints and expectations of institutions. Theoretical preparation for such presentness in the moment of teaching can impact critical service-learning.

Author

• Lucy Arnold Steele, Limestone College