Service-learning is an experiential pedagogy connecting academic learning objectives with active engagement in work addressing community needs and issues. In the current moment, rationales for its use and growth center around 20+ years of societal frustration with poor academic performance and perceived irrelevance of educational institutions throughout the K-16 system (Boyer, 1996). Service-learning as an educational pedagogy and a tool for advancing civic engagement has flourished in this historical and social context. Its literature and research teem with stories and promises of personal, and sometimes, institutional transformation. Despite the wealth of information on program growth and positive student outcomes, service-learning has not been subjected to much theoretical critique (Butin, 2007). A “victory narrative” has resulted and has obscured other important issues in our collective understanding of this “transformative” pedagogy. One such issue is the silence that exists within this narrative about the experiences of people of color who are both underrepresented in service-learning’s program and research participation rates (Butin, 2005a; Eyler & Giles, 1999; Swaminathian, 2007). Race and class have received some amount of attention but are constructs typically examined through the lenses of white students and white researchers (Green, 2001, 2003). A troubling lack of critique alongside complicated outcomes benefiting individual, largely white students and little understanding of larger communal and societal benefit as evidenced by an ever-widening wealth gap suggests that the claims offered by victory narratives around service-learning are insufficient.
The purposes of this critical qualitative research was to explore the ways in which racially underrepresented college student “mentors” at a predominantly white institution and their African-American, urban high school “mentees” from struggling socioeconomic backgrounds are impacted by their service-learning experiences. Specifically, I am interested in how discourse shapes the ways in which “impact” within service-learning is experienced and articulated. Multiple methodologies, instrumental case study, critical race, and Foucauldian discourse were used to collect data through in-depth interviews of college and high school students, document analysis of reflective writing, and participant observation notes. This data was analyzed three times using three distinct methodologies to elicit three “reads” of the data. The results were three very different stories that illuminate the vested interests and competing discourses operating in this service-learning experience.
The results speak against a “neat” read of the ways these students of color experienced service-learning as a critical pedagogy. There was some evidence to suggest that this service-learning experience described as working “within” community, was an important reason for the college and high school students to academically persist. The course was racially and socioeconomically homogeneous in its demographic makeup and provided the college students of color a safe release space from the stressors and pressures operating at their predominantly white campus. However, the students were very reluctant to join “service” activities or even consider this course and experience “service-learning” because of the ways in which they perceived community service as a “white, do-gooder” thing, giving some insight into why these students had not participated in other service-learning courses or programs on campus. Finally, discourses were analyzed in order to interrogate the ways the college students performed themselves in the service-learning and mentoring contexts. Characterized as “disengaged” in the classroom and as mentors, this discourse analysis worked to discern the complex issues working in the lives of these college students of color that were completely untouched by service-learning leading to questions about whether and how critical service-learning lives up to its transformational promises.
This study offers a glimpse into the complexity of a pedagogy that is too often treated as a “good thing” in and of itself. Through the candor and generosity of the participants in this study, highly conflicting understandings of service-learning emerge that speak against the neat and tidy packaging of service-learning in both the research and in the pedagogical design of service-learning. The goal of this study was never to simply dismiss service-learning but to delve into the complexities and honor the participants’ wisdom. It is my hope that this study achieves this end and speaks with a conflicted though hopeful voice about service-learning and its potential.