Black Students in Community Service-Learning: Critical Reflections About Self and Identity

The dialogue of action and interaction of Black students as participants in
community service-learning coursework was the focus of this study. Examined
were the particular experiences of 13 Black students as participants in coursework
that integrates community service projects as part of the curriculum. Through the
lens of subjectivity, these Black students reveal the complexities of race, class and
identity that informed their experiences in the classroom and in the community.
Findings indicated that there is an absence of critical sustained dialogue on race,
racism and cultural difference in community service-learning. Black students
responded with self-silencing when implicit or explicit references to race arose in
class. They found themselves navigating dual identities as members in the
classroom and volunteers in the community and they developed cultural
competence to bridge cultural differences they encountered in a predominantly
Black community around race, language and identity. This study contributes to
the service-learning literature by placing student's subjectivity as a framework in
the construction of theory, research and practice.