In the wake of Hurricane Maria and in response to the negligent inefficiency of the local and federal governments, community groups and collectives, grassroots organizations, and activists of multiple causes began organizing under the principles of mutual aid and solidarity in Puerto Rico. One of these is the Colectivo Casco Urbano de Cayey…

Volunteering by higher education students in the UK has a long history which remains largely unexplored despite recent research and policy attention. This article offers a brief overview of the development of student volunteering before the 1960s and then discusses a shift from student social service to Student Community Action in the late 1960s…

College students are in a key developmental stage for cultivating their civic identities. This article draws on a case example to show how courses focused on educating students for democratic citizenship--courses on leadership, community organizing, social movements, or other related topics--prove to be excellent venues for integrating Catholic…

Global education advances global perspectives and prepares globally competent citizens. Globally competent citizens know they have an impact on the world and that the world influences them. Global competency is often viewed in terms of three attributes: knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Given the importance of preparing pre-service teachers who…

This article describes a model of civic engagement based on four key community organizing practices, created at Occidental College and implemented since 2001. The foundations of this model do not include confrontation, mass mobilization, or demonstrations--tactics commonly associated with the term community organizing. This model, instead,…

At the 2006 National Association of Gifted Children Conference, a panel presentation addressed the importance of providing gifted children with opportunities to take positive social action through service-learning; this article is a result of that discussion. The Future Problem Solving Program (among others) has a community problem-solving…

Implementing service-learning programs in schools for our gifted may help nurture the development of more highly moral people. Service-learning, a method by which students learn and develop through curriculum integration and active participation in thoughtfully organized service experiences that address needs in their community, has three levels:…

Many adults have a desire to give back to the communities that have supported and nurtured them, and they find their own ways to do so. Community based learning is but one mechanism for making connections that enable one to satisfy the aspiration to address the many problems of concern. It is a methodology that can be employed in the classroom,…

In this article, the author describes the leadership class that she created for the family and consumer sciences (FCS) department. The class, "Family & Consumer Sciences Issues & Applications," focused on family and community action for improved quality of life. It included in-depth laboratory experiences, service learning activities, and the…

This paper describes and analyzes an undergraduate course entitled Public Interest Research in which students learn research methods by conducting research on behalf of one or more community organizations. Students' work is conceived of as community action learning, a combination of participatory action research and service learning, emphasizing…

Explores why service-learning students have only rarely been engaged directly as neighborhood organizers, then employs John Dewey's understanding of democracy to analyze one program which has succeeded in making widespread use of college students as front-line organizers. Describes how the complementarity between what students do at their…

Citing the need for a basic, K-12 developmental framework for service learning, this article describes such a model. This model, an inclusive typology of service learning, distinguishes three levels of service learning: Community Service, Community Exploration, and Community Action. The authors correlate this typology to Piaget's cognitive…

Participatory action research focuses on information and analyzes needs of society's most economically, politically, socially marginalized groups/communities, and pursues research on issues determined by their leaders. It provides faculty with opportunities to conduct research relevant to community needs while providing service learning…

To alert the community to the impact of a proposed parkway that would divide the largest remaining greenspace in Charlottesville (Virginia), an architect, a photographer, and students from a private high school dedicated to ecology and art lined the proposed route with tires. The project garnered a lot of publicity, and to date the parkway has not…

The National Indian Youth Leadership (NIYL) model was created to develop leadership skills for Indian youth to perform their future roles in the family, school, tribe, and nation. The model not only instills leadership skills and values through hands-on learning opportunities, but also challenges youth to apply those skills through projects they…