Social Justice Principles for Experiential Education

For more than five years a group of NSEE members has come together in conference sessions, conference tracks, and most recently in a Special Interest Group (SIG) to discuss how experiential education might embody and contribute to social justice. In this article, three members of the social justice SIG propose a set of principles to deepen this ongoing discussion. Drafts of these principles were discussed at the 1999 conference in San Diego and feedback was used to amend the document. While these principles are informed by and grounded in principles of good practice for service-learning, quality experiential learning, and community partnerships, they diverge from these other principles by explicitly envisioning social justice as a means and an end for experiential learning. The principles offered herein appear as "should" statements. In many practical instances these principles cannot reasonably and fully be upheld: these principles can be viewed as fluid and "living." They are meant to stir up discussion among practitioners and must be contested and debated. (authors)