Service-Learning: An Education Strategy for Preventing School Violence

Service-learning provides both the social structure and the emotional support that can help counter youth violence. It works because it provides a vehicle to reach young people by using carefully selected contexts of community service as environments for learning. The addition of service-learning helps students see firsthand that caring about others makes a difference. It also provides an important way for young people to connect with their communities by giving them a stake in creating positive changes where they live. This item contains excerpts from an issue paper that considers reaching alienated or disaffected students and promoting positive youth development.