Based on quantitative survey data and qualitative data from journal entries by students in a seminar focused on community-based research, undergraduate student perceptions of community partners are explored in the context of debates about the politics of knowledge. Student perceptions that frame community partners as the recipients of academic…

Reciprocity is a foundational concept in service-learning and community engagement, yet it is frequently referred to in the literature without precise conceptualization or critical examination, in effect suggesting a shared understanding of the concept among practitioners and scholars. However, understandings and applications of the term vary…

This paper explores four potent tensions between service-learning students and their community agency hosts. These tensions result from naturally opposing perspectives and are reflected in the service-learning literature focused on criticism and complaint. Given the centrality of the alliance between service-learners and their community host…

This paper illustrates an approach for using university-wide service-learning student outcomes to assess student work for the purpose of improving service-learning student and faculty learning and course design. The author and a colleague used this approach to study the author's service-learning course. The results of this study generated an…

Through an analysis of a practice-oriented course on youth worker professional development consisting of 10 community youth workers and 11 traditional college students, this paper suggests the need to construct the classroom as a "borderland." Course structure, class composition, pedagogical strategies, and deliberate learning objectives disrupted…

This article explores the mutually enriching bodies of scholarship in service-learning and Critical Emotion Studies with a focus on empathy and compassion, which, perhaps more than any other emotions, hold a prominent place in service-learning literature. We offer an overview of nascent research on empathy and compassion in Critical Emotion…

Community service learning and community-based research necessitate the development of strong community-university partnerships. In this paper, students, faculty, and a community partner critically reflect upon the process of establishing a long-term community-university partnership through the integration of a community service learning component…

This article presents the results of a narrative case study exploring the influences of social identity on the outcomes associated with a short-term immersion program focused on HIV/AIDS. Presented in the form of contextual, individual, and shared narratives, results suggest that participants crossed developmental, interpersonal, and cultural…

As New Orleans began to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, Tulane University also began its recovery process. A new initiative in the recovery was the establishment of a public service graduation requirement for undergraduate students. Attitudes toward the requirement were assessed for 290 first-year and 257 advanced students in fall 2006. The…

This article reviews the unique opportunities and challenges related to establishing and maintaining a long-term community-university development partnership in a historic African American community. It highlights the significant benefits and costs generated by an interdisciplinary community development assistance project undertaken by a community…

As a defining aspect of service-learning and civic engagement, relationships can exist among faculty members, students, community organizations, community members, and administrators on campus. This research developed procedures to measure several aspects of these relationships. Investigators collected information from 20 experienced…

This paper explores the methodological implications of applying an ethnographic sensibility to evaluation in service-learning. It describes the evolution of such a method over the past 10 years within the Citizen Scholars Program at the University of Massachusetts, and outlines what we have learned from employing this method, as well as the…

Retention of college students is a priority of all colleges and universities. This research investigated whether or not student enrollment in a service-learning course in the fall semester of college was related to (a) intentions to stay on that campus, based on self-reports at the end of the semester, and (b) re-enrollment the following fall on…

Low-income students who are the first in their family to attend college continue to drop out at alarmingly high rates. Previous studies have shown that service-learning can have a positive influence on student retention. However, little research exists to explore how low-income, first-generation (LIFG) college students experience service-learning,…

Stigmas toward those who have mental illnesses are wide-spread and detrimental to the health and well-being of those suffering from these debilitating conditions, and to society as a whole. Stigma-reducing programs are plentiful but many are only marginally effective. In this paper we describe and evaluate a course in Psychopathology that included…