The Challenge of Critical Service-Learning: Positioning Students, Service, and Communities

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

Abstract

Colleges and universities across the US espouse a mission of service and community engagement. Though service-learning provides a vehicle for this mission, critics argue there is often a lack of exploration of structural causes of inequality and engagement in transformative action. Critical service-learning (CSL) has the potential to introduce students to structural inequality and raise critical consciousness. This study analyzes the syllabi from a service-learning course focused on disproportionate distribution of resources in education.Findings suggest CSL pedagogy requires consideration of how faculty positions university students in relation to the communities in which they serve. Thus, universities must encourage critical approaches to community-engaged work and experiential education by providing institutional support to faculty and opportunities for continual critical analysis of student positioning.

Authors

• Heather Marie Coffey, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Lucy Arnold Steele, Limestone College

• Meghan Barnes, University of North Carolina - Charlotte