{"id":5468,"date":"2008-06-17T07:18:17","date_gmt":"2008-06-17T07:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=5468"},"modified":"2008-06-17T07:18:17","modified_gmt":"2008-06-17T07:18:17","slug":"why-study-service-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=5468","title":{"rendered":"why study service-learning?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m at Brandeis for a meeting of “emerging scholars” who study service-learning. They are paired with established mentors who advise them, and they enter a network of other new scholars in the field. This is a project (which we are helping to run) that is part of a larger effort to build the field of service-learning. I also participate in the “emerging leaders” part of the effort, which supports younger managers and organizers. Both aspects are funded by the Kellogg Foundation.<\/p>\n

This seems an appropriate moment to ask why anyone should study service-learning (the combination of community service with academic study). I would say:<\/p>\n

1. Because studying young people who are asked to work on a community problem or issue is a great opportunity to investigate large issues about human development, the reproduction or reform of institutions and cultures, learning, deliberation, racial conflict, and many other issues. In other words, service-learning is an opportunity for social science.<\/p>\n

2. Because service-learning is common–present in about half of American high schools–yet the quality is very uneven. Research can identify what aspects of service-learning generate good results in various contexts. Once we know that makes service-learning succeed, we can inform future teachers in their education courses, explain the criteria in program guidelines, and so on.<\/p>\n

3. Because there is an opening for new policies that involve service. Senators McCain and Obama both favor service-learning, and there is an effective nonpartisan advocacy campaign<\/a> for national and community service programs. It is fairly straightforward to design new policies for Americorps. But it’s not so easy to say what a good service-learning policy should be for k-12 schools. Policies cannot automatically create high-quality educational experiences. They always operate through rather crude incentives or rules–for instance, grant opportunities, mandates, course requirements, standards, or state-sponsored exams. We need research about the likely impact of policies before we can tell friendly politicians which policies they should promote.<\/p>\n

Note that even a friendly politician must make choices–must decide how much resources to put into service-learning compared to <\/em>other activities, including other forms of experiential civic education. Responsible advice to policymakers thus depends upon careful and rigorous comparative research. It’s not enough to say that service-learning is good; we have to know whether each marginal dollar is better spent on it or something else.<\/p>\n

4. Because a lot of adults are involved in a field called service-learning, and it’s a good group–diverse in goals and ideologies but idealistic and fairly coherent. To use an over-used term, it’s a “community.” Communities can deserve loyalty even if one doesn’t believe that they are objectively better or more important than other communities. I’m not sure that I believe service-learning is a better, or even a more promising, intervention than some others. I am sure that the community that supports it is a good one. According to the great work of Albert O. Hirschman, when one wants to change a group, the two choices are “exit” and “voice.” Exit is the main mechanism in a market, and it is a good one. We use “voice” when we cannot exit a group (e.g., a family or a nation), or when we are loyal. I think the service-learning world merits some loyalty, and that means using our voice to improve it. For those of us who are scholars, the best form of voice is research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m at Brandeis for a meeting of “emerging scholars” who study service-learning. They are paired with established mentors who advise them, and they enter a network of other new scholars in the field. This is a project (which we are helping to run) that is part of a larger effort to build the field of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}