Community service trips are often viewed as educational because students supposedly cross socio-economic, racial, and other borders to engage with people of various backgrounds. However, diversity among students, their differing experiences of the service trip, and the ways they learn from each other's experiences are rarely discussed. Based on…

Background: Despite increased access to higher education in recent decades, first-generation (first-gen) university students continue to face challenges with persistence and completion. Recommended responses by universities include exposing these students to "high-impact" educational practices. Purpose: This article examines the…

Employing critical incident technique and the constructivist grounded approach, this study conducted individual in-depth interviews with 13 undergraduate students who had experiences studying abroad in China to find out how American college students perceived their new learning environment in China, and to examine the strategies students employed…

Inclusive education remains a challenge for Australian tertiary education, particularly specialized pedagogical approaches like work-integrated learning (WIL) and service learning. Critiques of mainstream pedagogical approaches raise questions about the predominant models of educating students (Butin, 2010; Howard, 1998). There is a definitive…

Applied community learning experiences for university students are promising endeavors in downtown urban environments. Past research is applied to help better comprehend a community engagement initiative conducted in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The initiative aimed to illuminate the socio-cultural diversity of the downtown area utilizing…

Background: The ability to effectively teach culturally and linguistically diverse students is critically important. Research has shown that providing teacher candidates educative experiences through critical service-learning can better prepare future teachers and can foster a social justice stance. Purpose: This study examines teacher candidates'…

This study explored the intersection between service learning and general education outcomes through the self-reported perceptions of 382 college students participating in an intercultural communication course that satisfied the general education requirement at a midsized Upper Plains research university for studying cultural diversity. The data…

Service Learning (SL) is a pedagogy aimed at combining academic studies and volunteer community action. The advantages of SL are numerous and are discussed elsewhere. The article points to some of the less studied aspects of service learning programs: the price that students pay for their volunteer service in the community. The discussion will be…

In this paper, we investigate the effects of a community- and school-based service learning experience (SLE) on pre-service physical education teachers' Indigenous knowledge, cultural competency and pedagogy. Informed by the theoretical tenets of Indigenous research methodologies, experiential learning and critical reflection, we examine 55…

As communications students learn to tell stories, the curriculum should teach them to cover diverse groups accurately. Scholars have studied coverage of diversity in gender, nationality, ethnicity, and race. One area that has seen less attention is economic diversity, in particular, coverage of the poor. This paper examines how service-learning…

An immersion training model is described that incorporates culturally focused community-centered service in South Africa as an experiential learning approach. Recommendations for developing international cultural immersion training with a goal of developing cultural competencies are suggested.

International service-learning (SL) and study abroad (SA) courses are increasingly part of university curricula. A literature review shows these two types of experiential learning share similarities that offer potential synergies for the growing numbers of both types of experiences. This possibility is explored further by analyzing results from a…