Uses a critical postmodern analysis to examine the range of thinking and contemporary practice in the field of service learning. Introduces a new schema, discourse-praxis community, as a way to conceptualize the field and to reexamine issues such as diversity, historicity, conflict, and power. (SM)

Examined the literature to answer: (1) "What outcomes have resulted from preservice teachers' involvement in service-learning activities in diverse community settings?" and (2) "What challenges exist to enhance their multicultural teaching competencies through service-learning?" Summarizes three challenges (e.g., the resiliency of preservice…

In this paper, we describe how our department recently incorporated a major service learning component into the curriculum. Specifically, we employed participation in the IRS's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program as an effective means of experiential and service learning for the past two years for Masters of Accountancy students. We…

Schools have a responsibility to prepare good citizens. This entails teaching moral education along with transmitting academic knowledge and skills. Moral education should be an explicit aim for every educator. Yet, ethical discourse is largely absent in K-12 classrooms and moral education has a small role in teacher education programs in the…

Service-learning is an educational practice that has been used successfully in many disciplines, and is defined as "a credit-bearing, educational experience in which students participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of…

This study examines the effects of the Community Action service learning project, part of the Learn and Serve America program, on gifted adolescents and their community. Using a case study design, the author investigates this service learning project grounded in creative problem solving. The importance of service learning to the participants is…

Service learning is a teaching method used by business faculty to link the learning goals and objectives of an academic course with meaningful community service. Although service learning has been advanced in business education in the United States and other Western countries, little has been reported on its use outside the Western context. In…

The modern character education movement emerged in the 1980s as a consequence of growing parental and public concern for moral drift, or what sociologist James Davison Hunter referred to as "the death of character." This public anomie was captured in these words from Sanford McDonnell, chairman emeritus of McDonnell Douglas and chair of…

This book presents papers by teacher educators who describe how they foster the integration of service learning into their teacher education programs, with the eventual goal of institutionalization. The papers are: "Introduction" (Marty Duckenfield and Kevin J. Swick); "An Experiment in Implementation" (Bill Yost);…

This article presents results from an evaluation of service learning in statistics courses for master of social work students. The article provides an overview of the application of a community-based statistics project, describes student feedback regarding the project, and illustrates some strengths and limitations of using this pedagogy with…

Service learning allows students to learn more about their classroom instruction through involvement with their local community. It is both a service given to the community, as well as a practical way for students to reflect on what they have been studying in class. The author of this article explains a service learning project which will be very…

Many instructors have expressed a recent interest in incorporating service-learning activities into their courses. Several authors have maintained that service-learning opportunities help students to better understand class concepts and also lead to desirable outcomes in students, such as enhanced self esteem and an increased interest in social…

In this study, the authors analyze an effective classroom teaching style that relies on interactive learning and integrates classroom activities and efforts into communities. They introduce the service learning project as an effective teaching tool that can be used along with other effective teaching practices to enhance students' learning…

This article introduces an approach to service learning based on students' collective engagement with a range of community organizations. We explore the particular benefits of this comparative collective community-based (CCC) learning model through a discussion of the "Possibilities for Change in American Communities" program, which was begun by…

From a visual perspective, many disadvantaged students are assigned to schools that are dark, shabby and lifeless--more like a factory or fortress than a place for learning. Equally lifeless is the standard test-driven curriculum which utterly fails to tap the interests and talents of these students. Stultified learning environments are…