Research shows that when young people participate in service, they are more likely to continue on a pathway of lifelong civic engagement. Research also shows that service-learning, an approach to education that ties community service to classroom instruction and reflection, contributes to students' success and has a positive impact on their social…

For more than 25 years, educators have developed and institutionalized efforts to help first-year students succeed. This monograph collects case studies from 22 institutions that have created programs and initiatives to support their first-year students. The programs range from encouraging civic engagement and academic achievements to…

In this study, the authors examined participation rates in, and attitudes toward, service in community settings in a sample of 936 academically talented adolescents. Results indicated that about 50% of the participants participated in both classroom-sponsored and organization-sponsored service activities, with female students reporting higher…

This pack aims to provide materials to help all those involved in youth volunteering and post-16 citizenship education to ensure that there are some citizenship learning outcomes from these valuable experiences. The pack has been produced by the Post-16 Citizenship Support Programme to help the integration of citizenship education into post-16…

New attention is being paid to graduate education and civic engagement. For decades college campuses have worked diligently to connect undergraduate academic study with public service in order to enhance learning and meet community needs, a connection often referred to as service-learning or civic engagement. This brief explores the importance and…

Young people involved in the Youth Science Center, Youth-in-Government, and Public Achievement told interviewers about their experiences, and this allows us to make explicit contrasts between formal aims, strategies, ethos, curriculums, and activities of each initiative and what it is like to be a participating youth. The contrast is, as expected,…

Many researchers have explored faculty engagement in service-learning. However, scholarship rarely considers ways in which the discourses used by faculty to describe service-learning--the stories they tell about what it is they are doing and why--construct images of subject positions, problems, and solutions that inform our beliefs about…

Civic engagement and participation are central to the functioning of a democratic society. In addition, young people who are involved in civic activities are more engaged in academics, are less likely to participate in risky behaviors, and more than likely continue on to adulthood as contributing members of their communities. Rates of young…

Multiracial youth activism groups, based in working class and poor neighborhoods, seek to improve social conditions by organizing grassroots campaigns. Campaigns such as these, which require sophisticated planning, organizing, and advocacy skills, are noteworthy not just for their political impact, but also because of the insights they provide…

This article features a service learning program at Albuquerque TVI Community College which provides hands-on civic education to its students. The Service Learning Program began in 1994 with a $5,000 grant from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). The success of the program provided for the development of the Department of…

Because service-learning challenges participants to widen perspectives on social issues, we designed and assessed a multi-semester, multidisciplinary project with both academic and service objectives. In this project, undergraduate students developed a script and video centered on a board game designed to educate high-school students about their…

Describes activities of City Year, an AmeriCorps national service program that sponsors youth service activities in Boston, San Antonio, and other cities. (SK)

Asserts that service learning proponents are divided over direct charity versus justice advocacy models, with many claiming a need for justice advocates to moderate their philosophy in order to secure long-term support. Claims that despite justice advocacy's trouble institutionalizing itself (e.g., Settlement House, Students for a Democratic…

Service-learning courses can be powerful instruments for cognitive, affective, and moral transformation. This chapter examines the strengths and weaknesses of service-learning as an agent for cognitive, moral, and interpersonal development and its ability to promote civic or social engagement.

Adult volunteers who work as experiential educators in Public Achievement (PA) told us about their experiences, and we contrasted these with the stated aims of Public Achievement, young peoples' experiences, and what it is like to be an adult volunteer. PA coaches reflected that there was a significant disjuncture between the official aims of PA…