Educators, researchers, and institutions have long recognized experiential education's value for fostering ongoing learning and skill development. In recent years, experiential education has gained increased traction in higher education, based on recognized need for graduates to encounter and actively reflect on lived experiences in various…

Service-learning is a valuable pedagogical practice for undergraduate students. It provides meaningful community engagement for students and assists in linking theory with practice. This article provides information regarding the planning, execution and outcomes of an undergraduate service-learning project conducted in a law enforcement class. A…

A service-learning course at a midsized Midwestern research university was modified over a period of six years to integrate best-practice pedagogies that have been shown to increase civic engagement by students. Best-practice pedagogies included regular interaction with community partner(s), significant time spent on the service activity, and…

Local community organizations with data and statistical needs provide beneficial authenticity and context in the classroom. Students can provide creative, broad perspectives to problems and issues relevant to those organizations. This paper describes characteristics of mutually beneficial relationships between classes and community partners.…

Evidence from the UN World Youth Report (2015) suggests that young people, while increasingly disengaged with formal political processes, are motivated by cause-related social action. Higher Education (HE), through research and partnership, provides ideal learning spaces to explore cause-related social action. However, as HE partnership…

Civic engagement, service-learning, and university-assisted community schools are strong forces in making universities, as anchor institutions, engaged and responsible within their spheres of influence. By helping solve social problems, universities engage in the highest form of learning, come to understand social issues and problems, and escape…

In response to increasing homelessness in our city, Seattle Pacific University invited a homeless encampment (Tent City) to reside on our university campus for three months. This provided an opportunity to engage students on issues of poverty and inequality. Building from a service-learning model, we devised course work around homelessness and…

In this article we explore the dynamic between the pedagogical and the urban, attending to 'agentive urban learning'. By this we mean processes by which young people build agency in the urban context, in using the resources of the city to develop their own agency, and of developing agency to act within the city. By agency, we refer to the capacity…

Dr. James Kielsmeier, founder of the National Youth Leadership Council, uses the history of service-learning as the foundation for the introductory article of this issue. In his article, Dr. Kielsmeier defines service-learning, explores current challenges schools have integrating service-learning within the school day, discusses the need and…

Community-based research (CBR) is an increasingly familiar approach to addressing social challenges. Nonetheless, the role it plays in attaining community impact is unclear and largely unstudied. Here the authors discuss an emerging framework aimed toward fostering community impact through university and community civic engagement. They describe…

For the past two years, eighth graders at Lincoln Middle School have been participating in the STEMester of Service program, which uses the science, math, and language arts curricula to help students improve the environment. More than 70% of Lincoln students receive free and reduced-price lunch, and the school is diverse because it hosts the…

Authentic service learning in city schools helps students work toward important change in their own communities. Students are able to face and address issues that have an immediate impact on their neighbors and themselves. Two examples from Chicago neighborhoods illustrate how powerful the concept is: Students worked with a community organization…

Few studies have directly examined how recipients of service view the service. This qualitative study presents the results of interviews and observations of nine community members who participated in a service-learning, language exchange program, Intercambio, in which Spanish-speaking Latino immigrants were paired with English-speaking university…

This article describes a case example of a pedagogical approach that successfully integrates teaching technical skills, knowledge, and civic engagement. Students embarked on a semester-long project to assess the complexities of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, develop a response to address the concerns of community constituents, and…

Despite evidence that service-learning projects can have positive effects on students' learning and civic engagement, such projects are not yet widely utilized in political science. This seems to be driven, in part, by the concern that service-learning projects may politicize students. In my Urban Politics and Policy class, I implemented a…