Service Learning in Context: The Challenge of Diversity

Diversity is possibly the thorniest issue facing service-learning in higher education today. If the institutional culture and structure is so inadequate for supporting diversity among faculty and students, and the service-learning practice is so driven by the charity model, how could it possibly provide effective service-learning to diverse communities? The authors are not in a position to take on all of these concerns; instead, they limit themselves to the issue of diversity as it related to service-learners themselves. As a whole, their findings highlight a concern that service-learners rarely reflect the social demographics of the communities they serve. How do the differences between students and diverse community members manifest themselves in service-learning and impact these experiences for the student, the organization, and the communities they are serving? The main themes addressed in this chapter are: valuing diversity; dilemmas of the diversity issue; impacts of diversity; and managing a lack of diversity.