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Beyond consumerism and utopianism: How service learning contributes to liberal arts ideals (2002)
Venue: | Journal on Excellence in College Teaching |
Citations: | 1 - 0 self |
Citations
970 |
Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities for the professoriate.
- Boyer
- 1990
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...aspirations of others. Participants in service learning can understand the necessity of maintaining the fragile, but fundamental, equilibrium between competing self-interests and communal social responsibilities. Or, to paraphrase a line from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, liberally educated persons realize that their destinies are bound to the destinies of others. This brings us to what appears to be a more intuitive connection between service learning and liberal education: contributing to the freedom of others. Emphasizing the importance of service as an academic ideal, Boyer (1990) claims that “higher education and the rest of society have never been more interdependent than they are today . . . and . . . campuses [should] be more energetically engaged in the pressing issues of our time” (pp. 76-77). Service-learning programs are especially well suited for bringing college students and faculty into direct contact with societal concerns that classroom instruction tends to address only in abstract terms. An important caution stems from Oakeshott’s observation. The agenda for service learning should not be solely to train students for public service “careers.” The capaciti... |
335 |
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
- Postman
- 1993
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...lution of this debate seems straightforward, as proven by the presence of service-learning initiatives in many business administration programs. Career orientation should expand to embrace the recognition that professional success involves commitments to the community as well as to one’s self. Our recommendation is not to abandon the parlance and pressures of the marketplace altogether—an option that hardly seems realistic—but rather to assess critically their impact on the life of the community before accepting them. Concerning service-learning programs, we might pose questions such as those Postman (1992) would ask about technology, for example: To whom will they “give greater power and freedom?” and “Whose power and freedom will be reduced” by them? (p. 11). If service-learning practitioners routinely address these kinds of questions, we might gain more insight about the social impact of service-learning programs than we would by directing our questions exclusively at practical and technical concerns. Conclusions This article has sought to outline some of the criteria that should be taken into account when designing service-learning programs. Rather than specify the details of a program whose... |
196 |
Where’s the learning in service-learning?
- Eyler, Giles
- 1999
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...ianism 67 ees lack awareness of their social obligations, they could act irresponsibly in a corporate environment, failing to recognize their organization’s responsibilities to various stakeholders in the communities served by the organization. Service learning helps remedy the narrow vocational focus on learning as the acquisition of specific knowledge and skills obtainable only through specific programs of study. Service learning is inherently interdisciplinary insofar as it encourages students and faculty to pool resources to address community needs, transcending rigid academic boundaries (Eyler & Giles, 1999). Efforts to develop effective service-learning programs should reduce the tendency of departments to become compartments, insulating students and faculty in a particular field from the benefits of studying outside their area of focus. Service learning has the potential to complement consumerist tendencies, broadening the perspective of consumerism to stress greater social awareness. The evaluative standards employed by the Corporation for National Service (CNS) are replete with metaphors borrowed from the TQM movement in corporate America. The first three CNS criteria for programs engaged in ... |
106 |
The end of education: redefining the value of the school,
- Postman
- 1995
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...ocial movements requires student volunteers Beyond Consumerism and Utopianism 75 to identify the goals of the service agency and the audiences it tries to reach (University of North Carolina, 1993). Knowing this information before embarking on service projects would help to avoid overloading some agencies or engaging in service projects inconsistent with the mission of the course or academic institution. Learn From “Technological Adoration” An important lesson can be learned from the “technological adoration” that seems to have overwhelmed society in general and, especially, higher education (Postman, 1995, p. 38). Infatuation with technological fixes is predicated on the belief that educational problems are technological rather than moral or spiritual. Both Palmer (1993) and Postman (1995) argue that almost all of the really important problems in education are moral or, we might say, relational in nature. Consequently, technological solutions are not always attuned to the nature of the problems they are intended to remedy. Not only does this fact render such solutions prone to failure, but it also makes them more likely to be counterproductive regarding students’ involvement in community life ... |
94 |
Toward Transformation in Social Knowledge
- Gergen
- 1982
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...t place “resource acquisition” as a top priority. How Does Service Learning Overcome Social Quietism? Service learning has the capacity to contribute to intellectual and social liberation or, typically, to pursue social reforms incrementally without inviting sustained ideological critique. The synergies of service and learning should enable students “to challenge the guiding assumptions of the culture, to raise fundamental questions regarding contemporary social life, to foster reconsideration of that which is ‘taken for granted,’ and thereby to generate fresh alternatives for social action” (Gergen, 1982, p. 109). In sum, if service learning fits the paradigm of liberal education, it must, as we have emphasized already, “foster a freedom of the mind that will also contribute . . . to the freedom of others,” instead of perpetuating a community’s dependence on the services of professional elites (Giamatti, 1988, p. 124). By extension, McGee (1982), in theorizing “materialist” rhetoric, sought Beyond Consumerism and Utopianism 69 to show how concrete discourse should not play second fiddle to abstract theory. According to this view, rhetoric is “a natural social phenomenon” that signifies, solid... |
89 | The Strange Disappearance of Civic America", - Putnam - 1996 |
84 | Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: the universities. - Fairclough - 1993 |
84 |
The careless society: Community and its counterfeits.
- McKnight
- 1995
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...entrenched socioeconomic substratum, one might understand this point as the difference between educating for careers and education for caring. Service learning adds an important dimension that risks attenuation in consumer-focused educational philosophies. Rather than develop the technical skills of students, an orientation that critics such as Ellul (1990) believe reduces people to the economic functions they perform, service learning reminds participants that they collaborate with “those they work with as partners, as co-investigators of their ‘conditions of equality’” (Artz, 2001, p. 243). McKnight (1995) warns that the professionalization of care-giving carries with it the risk that whole communities may become dependent on professional services and, in the process, lose their capacity for self-caring: “[O]ur problem is not ineffective service-producing institutions. In fact, our institutions are too powerful, authoritative, and strong. Our problem is weak communities, made ever more impotent by our strong service systems” (p. ix). Moreover, McKnight (1995) contends, Service systems can never be reformed so they will “produce” care. Care is the consenting commitment of citizens to one another... |
82 | Involvement in learning revisited: Lessons we have learned - Astin - 1996 |
71 |
To know as we are known: Education as a spiritual journey.
- Palmer
- 1993
(Show Context)
Citation Context ... program, it is important to anticipate potential impediments so they can be avoided or minimized (Kolenko, Porter, Wheatley, & Colby, 1996). Service learning is no panacea for the maladies of higher education. Although it fits well with the imperative to instill in students an ethic of participatory democracy, improperly administered programs easily can subvert even the best intentions. The suggestions in the following sections offer some direction in addressing consumerism, social activism, and educational technology via service learning. Explore the Metaphoric Potential of Service Learning Palmer (1993) points out that “our culture and institutions tend to take shape around our dominant metaphors of reality, and to hold that shape long after our metaphors have changed” (p. xiv). If this is so, then we need to pay close attention to the metaphors we use to discuss higher education and service learning. Several alternative metaphors may reduce the pernicious implications of the student-as-customer metaphor. A productive alternative would be to enrich the metaphoric repertoire surrounding education, broadening the vision of students by recognizing their roles as revealed through service learnin... |
51 |
The civic and political health of the nation: A generational portrait.
- Keeter, Zukin, et al.
- 2002
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...espread student disengagement from traditional classroom instruction. By developing reciprocal connections between academic study and constructive social involvement, students presumably should be equipped, and motivated, to attain higher levels of proficiency in both academic and civic skills. The rationale behind this expectation is that students, in general, enter higher education with fairly strong social consciences developed, in part, from previous involvement in strong K-12 community service or service-learning programs or Journal on Excellence in College Teaching58 both (Billig, 2000; Keeter, Zukin, Andolina, & Jenkins, 2002). Although the present generation of college students may seem ill-prepared for and indifferent to the academic demands placed on them by college and university professors, there is a growing interest in voluntary participation in efforts to improve the quality of life in local communities (Levine & Cureton, 1998). Correspondingly, many service-learning advocates claim that it can play an important role in preparing students for responsible citizenship (Battistoni, 1997; Brandell & Hinck, 1997; Clark, Croddy, Hayes, & Philips, 1997; Hepburn, 1997; Kinsley, 1997). Hepburn (1997) provides a con... |
40 |
Service-learning in today’s higher education
- Jacoby
- 1996
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...ndence on service-learnBeyond Consumerism and Utopianism 59 ing programs as sources of inexpensive or uncompensated student labor. Besides the issues that could be raised about exploitation of students in course-mandated service projects, such dependence could undermine the potential for structural solutions to social problems that might result in more productive and far-reaching change. Finally, we offer recommendations for a version of service learning that navigates between political indoctrination and value-free objectivity. On a broader scale, our effort responds to the question posed by Jacoby (1996a): “How can service-learning research contribute to the development of more comprehensive theories of epistemology and learning?” (p. 325). This question assumes special significance given the pressing need to find out whether or not service learning can help to nurture in college students “the long-term development of a social ethic of caring, commitment, and civic engagement” that service-learning proponents desire (Giles & Eyler, 1998, p. 69). Such pedagogical and ethical issues emerge most clearly in service-learning projects that faculty coordinate for their classes. On many campuses, no... |
36 |
In the Service of What? The Politics of Service Learning.
- Kahne, Westheimer
- 1996
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...ommunities from their own mistakes, service learners recognize the lessons they can learn from the community. The relationship is reciprocal, with the community teaching lessons unavailable in traditional classroom settings. In the words of Jacoby (1996b), “Service-learning encourages students to do things with others rather than for them” (p. 8). Examine Whose Social Agenda Service Learning Serves Because it essentially places the stamp of approval on the organizaBeyond Consumerism and Utopianism 73 tions and causes that students serve, service learning has an inherently political dimension (Kahne & Westheimer, 1996). Students who participate in service learning might be expected to become social activists, instigating social change. In fact, a central principle of service learning has been identified as the contribution to “the larger struggle to improve social conditions” (Rhoads, 1997, p. 221). This drive for social improvement, while laudable, presents a quandary. Unless a universal good is identified, students will serve particular interests. But whose interests? This question invites reflection on the political agenda service learning serves. Service learning must steer a delicate path between indoc... |
27 | Research on K-12 school-based service-learning: The evidence builds.
- Billig
- 2000
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...g apparent widespread student disengagement from traditional classroom instruction. By developing reciprocal connections between academic study and constructive social involvement, students presumably should be equipped, and motivated, to attain higher levels of proficiency in both academic and civic skills. The rationale behind this expectation is that students, in general, enter higher education with fairly strong social consciences developed, in part, from previous involvement in strong K-12 community service or service-learning programs or Journal on Excellence in College Teaching58 both (Billig, 2000; Keeter, Zukin, Andolina, & Jenkins, 2002). Although the present generation of college students may seem ill-prepared for and indifferent to the academic demands placed on them by college and university professors, there is a growing interest in voluntary participation in efforts to improve the quality of life in local communities (Levine & Cureton, 1998). Correspondingly, many service-learning advocates claim that it can play an important role in preparing students for responsible citizenship (Battistoni, 1997; Brandell & Hinck, 1997; Clark, Croddy, Hayes, & Philips, 1997; Hepburn, 1997; Kin... |
21 |
25). The Technological Bluff.
- Ellul
- 1990
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...nd productivity do differ from often time-consuming and cumbersome ideals of maximizing participation in the democratic process (Mejias, 2001). Insofar as it results in professional entitlements for an educated elite whose livelihoods will depend on an entrenched socioeconomic substratum, one might understand this point as the difference between educating for careers and education for caring. Service learning adds an important dimension that risks attenuation in consumer-focused educational philosophies. Rather than develop the technical skills of students, an orientation that critics such as Ellul (1990) believe reduces people to the economic functions they perform, service learning reminds participants that they collaborate with “those they work with as partners, as co-investigators of their ‘conditions of equality’” (Artz, 2001, p. 243). McKnight (1995) warns that the professionalization of care-giving carries with it the risk that whole communities may become dependent on professional services and, in the process, lose their capacity for self-caring: “[O]ur problem is not ineffective service-producing institutions. In fact, our institutions are too powerful, authoritative, and strong. Our ... |
19 |
A service learning research agenda for the next five years. New Directions for Teaching and Learning,
- Giles, Eyler
- 1998
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...ion of service learning that navigates between political indoctrination and value-free objectivity. On a broader scale, our effort responds to the question posed by Jacoby (1996a): “How can service-learning research contribute to the development of more comprehensive theories of epistemology and learning?” (p. 325). This question assumes special significance given the pressing need to find out whether or not service learning can help to nurture in college students “the long-term development of a social ethic of caring, commitment, and civic engagement” that service-learning proponents desire (Giles & Eyler, 1998, p. 69). Such pedagogical and ethical issues emerge most clearly in service-learning projects that faculty coordinate for their classes. On many campuses, nonacademic offices such as Student Development or Career Services coordinate service-learning programs. Although the following discussion applies directly to service learning in conjunction with academic courses, the challenge remains for all service-learning efforts to extend beyond a self-serving resume line for student participants. Connections Between Service Learning and Liberal Education In the September 1999 issue of University Busi... |
19 |
A Critique of Service Learning Projects in Management Education: Pedagogical Foundations, Barriers, and Guidelines."
- Kolenko, Porter, et al.
- 1996
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...e far fewer than the number of workers an organization wants. Academic inBeyond Consumerism and Utopianism 71 stitutions can include specific qualifications for choosing service-learning sites so that the risk of job displacement becomes minimal. San Jose City College, for example, stipulates that a site may be chosen only if the agency will continue to provide services without the aid of student labor. Caveats and Recommendations To improve the chances of developing a successful service-learning program, it is important to anticipate potential impediments so they can be avoided or minimized (Kolenko, Porter, Wheatley, & Colby, 1996). Service learning is no panacea for the maladies of higher education. Although it fits well with the imperative to instill in students an ethic of participatory democracy, improperly administered programs easily can subvert even the best intentions. The suggestions in the following sections offer some direction in addressing consumerism, social activism, and educational technology via service learning. Explore the Metaphoric Potential of Service Learning Palmer (1993) points out that “our culture and institutions tend to take shape around our dominant metaphors of reality, and to hold that s... |
17 |
The student as consumer: The implications and limitations of a metaphor.
- McMillan, Cheney
- 1996
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...mentary rather than antithetical. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching66 An associated risk of the consumerist viewpoint in higher education is to treat whoever assumes the consumer role as an individual whose desires should be satisfied above all else, but the legitimacy and quality of these desires may escape notice. Additionally, if consumers of education are understood as “receivers” of services, they are minimally empowered to take active roles in shaping those services, whereas everyone in the educational process should share a stake and become a participant in creative activities (McMillan & Cheney, 1996). Service learning offers a much more interactive picture of education: Faculty, students, and community members collaborate to achieve common or interrelated goals. Although service learning has been embraced by educational institutions, civic organizations, and corporations, it straddles the historic divide between educating students for democratic action and equipping them with skills transferable to the workplace (Lisman, 1998). Ideally, the citizen educated for democracy constantly strives for civic improvements, urging and agitating for changes that could bring about social justice for m... |
16 |
Summer). Service learning and democratic citizenship. Theory Into Practice,
- Battistoni
- 1997
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...vice or service-learning programs or Journal on Excellence in College Teaching58 both (Billig, 2000; Keeter, Zukin, Andolina, & Jenkins, 2002). Although the present generation of college students may seem ill-prepared for and indifferent to the academic demands placed on them by college and university professors, there is a growing interest in voluntary participation in efforts to improve the quality of life in local communities (Levine & Cureton, 1998). Correspondingly, many service-learning advocates claim that it can play an important role in preparing students for responsible citizenship (Battistoni, 1997; Brandell & Hinck, 1997; Clark, Croddy, Hayes, & Philips, 1997; Hepburn, 1997; Kinsley, 1997). Hepburn (1997) provides a concise working definition of service learning as “active involvement in the local community as a constructive and natural extension of classroom citizen education” (p. 136). This definition, which we use throughout this essay, straightforwardly establishes the nexus between service learning and the acceptance of broad civic responsibilities that should be one of the primary outcomes of a fouryear liberal arts education at an institution of higher learning. But the integrat... |
13 |
Service learning: connecting citizenship with the classroom.
- Brandell, Hinck
- 1997
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...arning programs or Journal on Excellence in College Teaching58 both (Billig, 2000; Keeter, Zukin, Andolina, & Jenkins, 2002). Although the present generation of college students may seem ill-prepared for and indifferent to the academic demands placed on them by college and university professors, there is a growing interest in voluntary participation in efforts to improve the quality of life in local communities (Levine & Cureton, 1998). Correspondingly, many service-learning advocates claim that it can play an important role in preparing students for responsible citizenship (Battistoni, 1997; Brandell & Hinck, 1997; Clark, Croddy, Hayes, & Philips, 1997; Hepburn, 1997; Kinsley, 1997). Hepburn (1997) provides a concise working definition of service learning as “active involvement in the local community as a constructive and natural extension of classroom citizen education” (p. 136). This definition, which we use throughout this essay, straightforwardly establishes the nexus between service learning and the acceptance of broad civic responsibilities that should be one of the primary outcomes of a fouryear liberal arts education at an institution of higher learning. But the integration of service learning ... |
12 | Enriching the curriculum through service learning. - Kingsley, McPherson - 1995 |
12 |
Toward a civil society: Civic literacy and service learning.
- Lisman
- 1998
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...active roles in shaping those services, whereas everyone in the educational process should share a stake and become a participant in creative activities (McMillan & Cheney, 1996). Service learning offers a much more interactive picture of education: Faculty, students, and community members collaborate to achieve common or interrelated goals. Although service learning has been embraced by educational institutions, civic organizations, and corporations, it straddles the historic divide between educating students for democratic action and equipping them with skills transferable to the workplace (Lisman, 1998). Ideally, the citizen educated for democracy constantly strives for civic improvements, urging and agitating for changes that could bring about social justice for marginalized populations. This additional advocacy compensates for the prospect that a potential employee would merely advocate for the interests of the employer, leaving to chance the acquisition of civic skills that might be fostered along with job-related competencies through the liberal arts approach. The difference between these orientations sometimes comes down to prioritizing either equity or efficiency, and a healthy democra... |
12 |
Principles of good practice in service-learning.
- Mintz, Hesser
- 1996
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...riteria for programs engaged in service are as follows: 1. Our “customers” are the reason we exist. We must stay attuned to their needs and strive always to exceed their expectations. 2. Volunteers, participants, and staff are customers too. They must be motivated, trained, and satisfied if they are to serve our customers well. 3. It is not enough to talk about customer satisfaction. We must set measurable goals, communicate them throughout our organization, regularly and systematically gauge our progress against these goals, and take action to continuously improve our performance. (quoted in Mintz & Hesser, 1996, pp. 32-33) The happy marriage between consumerism and service learning requires careful attention to the extent of reciprocity between server and served (Mintz & Hesser, 1996). Without this sense of partnership, service learning becomes an act of charity that reduces the autonomy of the people served until it renders them dependent on the care-givers. Barber (1990) balks at modeling civic activity after the marketplace. Like many others, he sees service as a way to offer models of social engagement that depart from competitive, adversarial relations that display the market at Journal on Exce... |
11 | A season of service – introducing service learning into the liberal-arts curriculum
- Barber, Battistoni
- 1993
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...nto self-sufficiency. Thus, the severance becomes analogous to the maturation of a dependent child into a responsible adult. Although families expect loyalty and obedience, the service relationship invites a less hierarchical arrangement of cooperation so that the community comes to rely less and less on external support. In a healthy family, the children grow up, become more independent, and, in their turn, assume the role of parenting. Concerns about dependency motivate exploration of a different metaphor: students as partners with the community in addressing unmet social needs (Artz, 2001; Barber & Battistoni, 1993). The partnership model suggests that academic institutions solicit advice from the community about how to educate students as well as provide advice to the community about how to tackle social issues. The partner metaphor also creates a productive bridge between business practice and liberal arts ideals. A partnership restores conditionality to the service relationship, thus recognizing that community relations are negotiated rather than assumed. Instead of being the knights in shining armor who rescue communities from their own mistakes, service learners recognize the lessons they can learn ... |
10 |
Summer). Service learning as civic participation. Theory Into Practice,
- Clark, Croddy, et al.
- 1997
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...al on Excellence in College Teaching58 both (Billig, 2000; Keeter, Zukin, Andolina, & Jenkins, 2002). Although the present generation of college students may seem ill-prepared for and indifferent to the academic demands placed on them by college and university professors, there is a growing interest in voluntary participation in efforts to improve the quality of life in local communities (Levine & Cureton, 1998). Correspondingly, many service-learning advocates claim that it can play an important role in preparing students for responsible citizenship (Battistoni, 1997; Brandell & Hinck, 1997; Clark, Croddy, Hayes, & Philips, 1997; Hepburn, 1997; Kinsley, 1997). Hepburn (1997) provides a concise working definition of service learning as “active involvement in the local community as a constructive and natural extension of classroom citizen education” (p. 136). This definition, which we use throughout this essay, straightforwardly establishes the nexus between service learning and the acceptance of broad civic responsibilities that should be one of the primary outcomes of a fouryear liberal arts education at an institution of higher learning. But the integration of service learning and the liberal arts ideal is something... |
9 |
Critical ethnography for communication studies: Dialogue and social justice in servicelearning.
- Artz
- 2001
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...an become more aware of the conditions that generate the need for various social services. Effective service learning would tend to make students empathize with the receivers of the service rather than view them as helpless recipients of charity. This type of empathy may require aggressive encouragement. One service-learning practitioner comments, “Finally, and most problematic, most college students arrive immersed Journal on Excellence in College Teaching62 in our consumer culture, and elective service-learning courses that champion the oppressed would have trouble finding takers at first” (Artz, 2001, p. 243). Giamatti (1988) also says that “liberal education desires to foster a freedom of the mind that will also contribute, in its measure, to the freedom of others” (p. 124). This statement establishes that intellectual pursuits risk becoming at least as self-centered as economic endeavors. The quest for intellectual excellence can devolve into a selfish accumulation of knowledge without any obligation to share that knowledge with others who have not enjoyed the same educational privileges. Just as the acquisition of financial wealth carries with it a sense of obligation to others, the li... |
9 |
Summer). Service learning in civic education: A concept with long, sturdy roots. Theory Into Practice,
- Hepburn
- 1997
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...both (Billig, 2000; Keeter, Zukin, Andolina, & Jenkins, 2002). Although the present generation of college students may seem ill-prepared for and indifferent to the academic demands placed on them by college and university professors, there is a growing interest in voluntary participation in efforts to improve the quality of life in local communities (Levine & Cureton, 1998). Correspondingly, many service-learning advocates claim that it can play an important role in preparing students for responsible citizenship (Battistoni, 1997; Brandell & Hinck, 1997; Clark, Croddy, Hayes, & Philips, 1997; Hepburn, 1997; Kinsley, 1997). Hepburn (1997) provides a concise working definition of service learning as “active involvement in the local community as a constructive and natural extension of classroom citizen education” (p. 136). This definition, which we use throughout this essay, straightforwardly establishes the nexus between service learning and the acceptance of broad civic responsibilities that should be one of the primary outcomes of a fouryear liberal arts education at an institution of higher learning. But the integration of service learning and the liberal arts ideal is something else that cann... |
9 |
A pedagogy for citizenship: Service learning and democratic education. In
- Mendel-Reyes
- 1998
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...onsumerist mentality that, incidentally, is at odds with the ethics of corporate responsibility outside of the academy. She complains that “the all-pervasive metaphor of the individual as a consumer crowds out such metaphors as citizen or neighbor, which capture and celebrate our interrelationships” (p. 3). Indeed, the “lip service” that academic institutions give to “the ideal of knowledge for its own sake and the common good” contrasts sharply with the stark reality that academics often adopt ideologies and terminologies of individual prosperity without concomitant community responsibility (Mendel-Reyes, 1998). Apparently this tendency among academics holds true empirically as well as philosophically. Although faculty continue to tout the virtues of community service for students, data from the national faculty survey conducted by UCLA over the past decade show that few faculty actually engage in such service themselves (UCLA, 1999). Such data easily can be misconstrued like Putnam’s (1996) conclusion about students: Declining participation must signify apathy. Rather, non-participation points to the need for integrating service opportunities into the curriculum rather than adding yet another layer... |
7 |
A free and ordered space: The real world of the university.
- Giamatti
- 1988
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...eir own possibilities now suffers under a narrowly vocational approach to pedagogy that, in too many instances, tilts heavily toward and caters to the cultivation of students’ anti-intellectual and amoral self-interest. The liberal arts tradition, however, need not privilege classrooms as sites of liberal learning. Service learning and liberal education, while certainly not natural allies, are not necessarily incompatible. Thus, we Beyond Consumerism and Utopianism 61 pose the question: How well do the philosophy and practice of service learning integrate with the ideals of liberal education? Giamatti (1988) summarizes an ideal of liberal education that finds fuller expression in Newman’s The Idea of the University: “A liberal education rests on the supposition that our humanity is enriched by the pursuit of learning for its own sake; it is dedicated to the proposition that growth in thought, and in the power to think, increases the pleasure, breadth, and value of life” (p. 121). Were service-learning programs to conform to this ideal, their justification would rest solely on their capacity to enrich the “power to think” and, correspondingly, to enable students “to express the results of [their] ... |
6 | The voice of liberal learning: Michael Oakeshott on education - Oakeshott - 1989 |
5 |
A materialist’s conception of rhetoric. In
- McGee
- 1982
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...nts “to challenge the guiding assumptions of the culture, to raise fundamental questions regarding contemporary social life, to foster reconsideration of that which is ‘taken for granted,’ and thereby to generate fresh alternatives for social action” (Gergen, 1982, p. 109). In sum, if service learning fits the paradigm of liberal education, it must, as we have emphasized already, “foster a freedom of the mind that will also contribute . . . to the freedom of others,” instead of perpetuating a community’s dependence on the services of professional elites (Giamatti, 1988, p. 124). By extension, McGee (1982), in theorizing “materialist” rhetoric, sought Beyond Consumerism and Utopianism 69 to show how concrete discourse should not play second fiddle to abstract theory. According to this view, rhetoric is “a natural social phenomenon” that signifies, solidifies, and alters social relationships (McGee, 1982, p. 38). What better way exists to observe, describe, practice, and critique these discursively engineered relationships than by participating in them at the grassroots level? Service learning offers a laboratory for the practice of materialist rhetoric in two ways. First, it provides a forum fo... |
5 | Can the total quality management approach used in industry be transferred to institutions of higher education? The Vocational Aspect of - Sutcliffe, W, et al. - 1992 |
4 |
The pre-scientific function of rhetorical criticism. In
- Bowers
- 1968
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...olidifies, and alters social relationships (McGee, 1982, p. 38). What better way exists to observe, describe, practice, and critique these discursively engineered relationships than by participating in them at the grassroots level? Service learning offers a laboratory for the practice of materialist rhetoric in two ways. First, it provides a forum for participating in rather than theorizing about ways to instigate social change. Second, service learning supplies a testing-ground for communication theory. As a real-world laboratory to test theoretical claims, service learning accomplishes what Bowers (1968) implored all scholars to do: Use theory to generate hypotheses, then test them empirically. Theory and practice should have a cyclical relationship in service learning. Students learn principles and theories in their readings and class discussions. Then they apply and test these ideas in actual settings beyond the walls of the college classroom. The reverse process has equal validity: Students experience actual situations that service providers confront, then connect those experiences with theories and principles. Subsequent coursework builds on what the students learned from their experience... |
4 | Evaluating service-learning: Toward a new paradigm. - Bradley - 1997 |
4 |
The controversy over service learning.
- Gardner
- 1997
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...splacement, service-learners should occupy positions that would not have been filled otherwise. (Moskos, 1990) Oi (1990) estimates that more than five million jobs could be staffed by unpaid service workers. He questions the value of such voluntary labor, claiming that organizations would have little incentive to train large numbers of temporary workers. Sometimes organizations are willing to train service learners, but they may lack the resources to do so. If many personnel suddenly infuse an organization, they may outstrip the organization’s ability to prepare or supervise the new recruits (Gardner, 1997). Such a situation highlights the importance of gauging not only the need but also the infrastructural capability of organizations linked to service learning. If an organization expresses a need for assistance, that request does not necessarily mean that more is better. Service-learning supervisors should determine the maximum number of personnel an organization can train and monitor properly. This number might be far fewer than the number of workers an organization wants. Academic inBeyond Consumerism and Utopianism 71 stitutions can include specific qualifications for choosing service-learni... |
4 |
Securing the future of service-learning in higher education: A mandate for action.
- Jacoby
- 1996
(Show Context)
Citation Context ...ndence on service-learnBeyond Consumerism and Utopianism 59 ing programs as sources of inexpensive or uncompensated student labor. Besides the issues that could be raised about exploitation of students in course-mandated service projects, such dependence could undermine the potential for structural solutions to social problems that might result in more productive and far-reaching change. Finally, we offer recommendations for a version of service learning that navigates between political indoctrination and value-free objectivity. On a broader scale, our effort responds to the question posed by Jacoby (1996a): “How can service-learning research contribute to the development of more comprehensive theories of epistemology and learning?” (p. 325). This question assumes special significance given the pressing need to find out whether or not service learning can help to nurture in college students “the long-term development of a social ethic of caring, commitment, and civic engagement” that service-learning proponents desire (Giles & Eyler, 1998, p. 69). Such pedagogical and ethical issues emerge most clearly in service-learning projects that faculty coordinate for their classes. On many campuses, no... |
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National service: Pro and con.
- Evers
- 1990
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Citation Context ... obligations toward others. The version of consumerism that has crept into higher education, however, often bears little resemblance to the complex combination of civic responsibility, enlightened self-interest, and adaptability to change that characterizes the most successful and socially aware corporations. At least as it might be defined in academic circles, the attenuation of social responsibilities in the face of this expanding consumerism reinforces the disjunction of rights and duties symptomatic of a growing “apathy and narcissism” at the expense of civic engagement (Etzioni, cited in Evers, 1990, pp. 145-146). Proponents of total quality management (TQM), for example, come very close to rendering quality synonymous with economy. Sutcliffe and Pollock (1992), who explicitly equate the customer with the student, define quality as providing whatever • Satisfies the customer. • Is as cheap as possible. • Can be achieved in time to meet delivery requirements. (p. 12) One interpretation of the third component, derived from industrial production models, would have educational institutions respond to urgent personnel needs of prospective employers. Clearly, most educational institutions find... |
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Service learning: A process to connect learning and living.
- Kinsley
- 1997
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Citation Context ...000; Keeter, Zukin, Andolina, & Jenkins, 2002). Although the present generation of college students may seem ill-prepared for and indifferent to the academic demands placed on them by college and university professors, there is a growing interest in voluntary participation in efforts to improve the quality of life in local communities (Levine & Cureton, 1998). Correspondingly, many service-learning advocates claim that it can play an important role in preparing students for responsible citizenship (Battistoni, 1997; Brandell & Hinck, 1997; Clark, Croddy, Hayes, & Philips, 1997; Hepburn, 1997; Kinsley, 1997). Hepburn (1997) provides a concise working definition of service learning as “active involvement in the local community as a constructive and natural extension of classroom citizen education” (p. 136). This definition, which we use throughout this essay, straightforwardly establishes the nexus between service learning and the acceptance of broad civic responsibilities that should be one of the primary outcomes of a fouryear liberal arts education at an institution of higher learning. But the integration of service learning and the liberal arts ideal is something else that cannot be taken for ... |
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Service, citizenship, and democracy: Civil duty as an entailment of civil right.
- Barber
- 1990
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Citation Context ...isfaction. We must set measurable goals, communicate them throughout our organization, regularly and systematically gauge our progress against these goals, and take action to continuously improve our performance. (quoted in Mintz & Hesser, 1996, pp. 32-33) The happy marriage between consumerism and service learning requires careful attention to the extent of reciprocity between server and served (Mintz & Hesser, 1996). Without this sense of partnership, service learning becomes an act of charity that reduces the autonomy of the people served until it renders them dependent on the care-givers. Barber (1990) balks at modeling civic activity after the marketplace. Like many others, he sees service as a way to offer models of social engagement that depart from competitive, adversarial relations that display the market at Journal on Excellence in College Teaching68 its worst. While education may help prepare students for the workplace, the value of learning extends beyond its market value. A view of education can emerge that is informed by realistic market practices and the social obligations attendant to service learning. This hybrid viewpoint avoids both the narrow market-based view of education a... |
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Charity begins at school.
- Finn, Vanourek
- 1995
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Citation Context ...ear of indoctrination became especially acute when, during the Clinton administration, proposals arose for a national service initiative. The basic argument is that whenever service becomes mandatory, it reflects the ideological commitments of whoever sponsors the service, be it the government, the professor, or the educational institution (Postrel, 1990). Some critics have claimed that the projects that fulfill the mandatory service requirements in Maryland schools (the first to institute mandatory service as a graduation requirement statewide) qualify as thinly disguised political advocacy (Finn & Vanourek, 1995). But all service acquires a political hue when it originates from the recognition that current conditions are less than ideal and should be ameliorated. Objections to the political side of service tend to target only those political agendas that the critic opposes. Professors’ attempts to avoid indoctrinating students into particular value systems through service learning could prove debilitating. Refusal to acknowledge the role of values would fail to equip students to render “their own moral and civic judgments” (Ehrlich, 1999, p. 7). Instructors must consider carefully not only the merits ... |
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23). The community is their textbook.
- Goldsmith
- 1995
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Citation Context ...ws” (Ehrlich, 1999, p. 9) while upholding moral commitments to serve so that students can make their own ethical judgments instead of floating in a relativistic stupor. The best way to cope with the political implications of service learning may be to acknowledge them outright rather than attempt to maintain the notion that service can remain apolitical. Few service agencies will prove acceptable to every ideological persuasion. Recognizing the determination of acceptable service projects in a politically charged environment as perhaps the “thorniest controversy” surrounding service learning, Goldsmith (1995) suggests that students play an active role in choosing their projects. Aside from democratizing the selection of service agencies, we recommend that the choices arise collaboratively from input by faculty, placement or service centers, and students. By broadening the sources of input, no narrow range of ideologies will reap the lion’s share of benefits from student service. In this way, a professor’s (or anyone else’s) own political leanings will not skew the service options so only one type of organization monopolizes the labor pool. Consistent, thorough disclosure of a service agency’s miss... |
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Sustainable communicational realities in the age of virtuality.
- Mejias
- 2001
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Citation Context ...nicate cogently and compassionately, and to transcend the limits of self-interest, should not be pre-professionalized at the undergraduate level so that they become mere components of hyphenated career tracks. Not only does this mitigate the “learning for learning’s sake” ideal, but, more importantly, it undermines the goal of “contributing to the freedom of others.” AlBeyond Consumerism and Utopianism 63 though not necessarily incompatible, the goals of efficiency and productivity do differ from often time-consuming and cumbersome ideals of maximizing participation in the democratic process (Mejias, 2001). Insofar as it results in professional entitlements for an educated elite whose livelihoods will depend on an entrenched socioeconomic substratum, one might understand this point as the difference between educating for careers and education for caring. Service learning adds an important dimension that risks attenuation in consumer-focused educational philosophies. Rather than develop the technical skills of students, an orientation that critics such as Ellul (1990) believe reduces people to the economic functions they perform, service learning reminds participants that they collaborate with “... |
2 | The abandoned generation: Rethinking higher education. Grand Rapids, - Willimon, Naylor - 1995 |
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February). A new twist on service learning.
- Chamberlin
- 2000
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Citation Context ...70 corporations. Service activity alone, without theoretical reflection, poses the risk of covering the symptoms of deep-rooted social problems with band-aid solutions, not confronting the causes of these problems and the potentially greater dangers they present to communities (Lisman, 1998). We have in mind the cultivation of activism akin to what Donna Duffy of Middlesex Community College endorses. After participating in community work with people who have psychological disorders, her students typically ask, “Why aren’t we doing more to develop resilience in our communities and ourselves?” (Chamberlin, 2000, p. 48). Instead of accelerating social improvement, service learning may actually threaten it by causing job displacement. If service learners could perform many tasks currently performed by paid employees, it would be more economical to rely on the unpaid labor. This possibility becomes more likely if service learners infuse labor sectors where the existing labor force is relatively unskilled and, thus, more susceptible to replacement by temporary or minimally trained workers (Oi, 1990). Since many community service agencies suffer from chronic under-staffing and minimally trained employees... |
1 | 4). Education Week [On-line]. Available: http://www.edweek.org/context/topics/civicsa.htm Ehrlich, - service - 1999 |
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National service and its enemies.
- Moskos
- 1990
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Citation Context ...ic under-staffing and minimally trained employees, the risk of job displacement as an unintended consequence of service learning poses a real threat: Properly designed service-learning programs can minimize the risk of job displacement, however. The argument about job displacement posits a direct tradeoff between service-learners and existing workers. Second, it assumes service-learners would disproportionately occupy jobs that the most vulnerable segments of the workforce now hold. To avoid job displacement, service-learners should occupy positions that would not have been filled otherwise. (Moskos, 1990) Oi (1990) estimates that more than five million jobs could be staffed by unpaid service workers. He questions the value of such voluntary labor, claiming that organizations would have little incentive to train large numbers of temporary workers. Sometimes organizations are willing to train service learners, but they may lack the resources to do so. If many personnel suddenly infuse an organization, they may outstrip the organization’s ability to prepare or supervise the new recruits (Gardner, 1997). Such a situation highlights the importance of gauging not only the need but also the infrastru... |
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National service: Who bears the costs and who reaps the gains?
- Oi
- 1990
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Citation Context ...typically ask, “Why aren’t we doing more to develop resilience in our communities and ourselves?” (Chamberlin, 2000, p. 48). Instead of accelerating social improvement, service learning may actually threaten it by causing job displacement. If service learners could perform many tasks currently performed by paid employees, it would be more economical to rely on the unpaid labor. This possibility becomes more likely if service learners infuse labor sectors where the existing labor force is relatively unskilled and, thus, more susceptible to replacement by temporary or minimally trained workers (Oi, 1990). Since many community service agencies suffer from chronic under-staffing and minimally trained employees, the risk of job displacement as an unintended consequence of service learning poses a real threat: Properly designed service-learning programs can minimize the risk of job displacement, however. The argument about job displacement posits a direct tradeoff between service-learners and existing workers. Second, it assumes service-learners would disproportionately occupy jobs that the most vulnerable segments of the workforce now hold. To avoid job displacement, service-learners should occu... |