Service-Learning and Resilience in Disaffected Youth: A Research Study

This paper examines the relationship between service-learning and resilience in disaffected youth and is grounded in a conceptual framework based on Marzano's (1998) theory-based meta-analysis of research on instruction and the four systems that govern human learning, e.g., the knowledge system, the cognitive system, the meta-cognitive system, and the self system. According to Marzano (1998), the self-system has five categories of beliefs--beliefs about self-attributes, self and others, the nature of the world, efficacy, and purpose--that appear to control all other aspects of human thought and action, and can be both stimulated by teachers and directly altered by specific instructional techniques. This study specifically examines how students' involvement in service-learning impacts the self-system and their resiliency capacity. While research on service-learning has shown that student involvement in service-learning has a positive impact on academic learning and achievement, this research seeks to explain increased academic achievement from the perspective of a meta-learning theory. The context for this research is a charter school in Northeast Kansas, the John Dewey Learning Academy (JDLA), that served up to 39 disaffected and at-risk high school youth from six rural school districts during the 2001/2002 school year.