Undergraduate students majoring in child and family development (CHFD) at a southeastern public doctoral/research university were required to complete 14 hours of service learning in a local after school program as part of the course requirements in a class titled "Youth Development." The course is a required course for majors and…

This study looked into the experience of a group of elementary school students as well as their parents from Hong Kong, in a service-learning programme that aimed at facilitating the social-emotional development among gifted students. A total of 51 students and 72 parents participated in the focus group interview three months after the…

Intermediate Phase students in the Bachelor of Education programme who elect art as one of their majors often experience problems in the teaching of art at schools during teaching practice. To overcome this problem, a service-learning project was designed by which students were granted the opportunity to teach art to children from a children's…

Purpose: This article reports preliminary outcomes from a service-learning (SL) experience for graduate students in the Speech-Language Pathology program with incarcerated mothers who reside with their infants at a residential parenting program. We present an ecological model to serve as a framework for interpreting the impact of the experience on…

This article describes the implementation of a service-learning project, which was infused into a child development course. The project linked family child care providers, their licensing agency, and 39 preservice teachers in a joint effort to develop a parent handbook to be used by the providers in their child care businesses and to support…

Skills developed through qualitative research and community partnerships can be essential for developing education students' cultural competency and understandings about diverse student populations. Toward this end, we developed a qualitative "service-research" project in a teacher education course focused on child development, whereby…

In this article, we present initial findings of an exploratory-pilot research study that focuses on "service learning" as a framework to examine "real learning" and identity changes of university students participating in a community based educational activity known as "La Clase Mágica." Student's reports and…

This paper shares the survey results of students' perceptions of the benefits of their experiences with service learning. The service learning experiences were related to children and their physical growth and development and/or to children and their health education. An open-ended questionnaire was sent to 376 graduated students (representing 11…

Analyses of 22 reflection journals of students enrolled in a service-learning-based child-development course at Connecticut College revealed 85 themes. Themes concerning initial adjustments and rapport building, setting limits on child behavior, and closure issues are discussed and accompanied with journal excerpts. Sharing these reflections with…

Journals of 30 college students of child development engaged in community-based service learning in multicultural settings revealed three themes. Students: (1) articulated their own approaches or philosophies regarding racial issues; (2) expressed concerns about specific multicultural or race-related incidents; and (3) discussed the resources they…

Character includes the emotional, intellectual and moral qualities of a person or group as the demonstration of these qualities in prosocial behavior. Character education is an inclusive term encompassing all aspects of how schools, related social institutions and parents can support the positive character development of children and adults.…