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Service-Learning and Community Engagement (SLCE)

What is service-learning and community engagement (SLCE)?

Service-learning and community-engagement (SLCE) entails taking students out into the community to learn through interaction with community members at a wide range of sites, including but not limited to schools, nonprofit organizations, libraries, afterschool programs, parks, and animal shelters. Students’ experiences at these community sites differ from volunteer experiences in that they are aligned with learning outcomes the professor has identified for the class. Experiences in the community are paired with guided reflection activities, demonstrating students’ progress toward achieving learning outcomes.   

Why engage in SLCE?

Faculty choose to feature community-engaged learning in their classes to deepen student learning through immersive experiences, to provide students with access to local knowledge sources, and to contribute to causes and campaigns related to course concepts. For example, a class on animal behavior might partner with a local animal shelter to provide enrichment to sheltered dogs, reducing problem behaviors and increasing adoption rates. This example reflects the crucial tenet of mutuality: community-engaged projects should benefit both the community partner and the students. 

What are the perils of SLCE and how can they be avoided?

In recent years, SLCE has sought to disentangle itself from a more traditional, deficit-based approach, in which representatives of the university sought to intervene in communities they perceived as problem-ridden and in need of services that could be provided by faculty and students (Mitchell et al. 621). Practitioners of this newly reflective approach, termed critical service-learning, are also careful to avoid engaging with community partners in an instrumental fashion–using them as resources to enrich their students’ learning–as doing so perpetuates town-and-gown dynamics, where the community bears the brunt of hosting the university (for example, coping with rents inflated by the presence of student tenants) while being denied access to the rich suite of resources the university provides to students, faculty, and staff.   

Practitioners of critical service-learning approach local communities with an asset-based lens (Mitchell et al. 624) and an awareness that, if mishandled, their presence in the community can do more harm than good (Mitchell 53). These practitioners bring their students into contact with community partners in order to learn with (not just about) community members and leaders (Mitchell et al. 624). Influential theorists such as Dan Butin have flipped the script on community-engaged work from its traditional, student-serving roots, emphasizing that the community partner’s needs matter as much as those of the students, and learning can be mutually beneficial for both parties when SLCE projects are designed intentionally with empathy, sustainability, and reciprocity in mind. Butin writes, “If the community partner did not have a say in the creation of the service-learning project, it is not critical service-learning.” Conversely, “If the instructor did not have a say in the creation of the service-learning project, it is not critical service-learning” (8). Mutuality is key.

Examples of SLCE

  • Students in an advanced Spanish class participate in and help run a Spanish-language book club at a local public library
  • Chemistry students visit a local elementary school monthly to teach basic chemistry to fifth graders
  • History students, partnering with a local nonprofit, gather oral histories of participants in an event of local or national importance and create a public-facing exhibit in partnership with a civic organization
How to get started with SLCE

Recommended Reading

  • Butin, Dan. “Dreaming of Justice: Critical Service-Learning and the Need to Wake Up.” Theory into Practice, vol. 54, 2015, pp. 5-10.
  • McKnight, John. “Why ‘Servanthood’ is Bad.” The Other Side, Jan./Feb. 1989, pp. 38-41.
  • Mitchell, Tania D.. “Traditional vs. Critical Service-Learning: Engaging the Literature to Differentiate Two Models.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 2008, pp.50-65.
  • Mitchell, Tania D., et al.. “Service Learning as a Pedagogy of Whiteness.” Equity & Excellence in Education, vol. 45, no. 4, 2012, pp. 612-629.

Works Cited

  • Butin, Dan. “Dreaming of Justice: Critical Service-Learning and the Need to Wake Up.” Theory into Practice, vol. 54, 2015, pp. 5-10.
  • Mitchell, Tania D., et al.. “Service Learning as a Pedagogy of Whiteness.” Equity & Excellence in Education, vol. 45, no. 4, 2012, pp. 612-629.
  • Mitchell, Tania D.. “Traditional vs. Critical Service-Learning: Engaging the Literature to Differentiate Two Models.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 2008, pp.50-65.