Service-Learning Research: Foundational Issues

Many signs point to the expansion of service-learning as an educational innovation in contemporary American schools and colleges. Instructors, from elementary schools to graduate and professional schools, are turning to the community as a laboratory to strengthen students' citizenship preparation and academic learning. With student partners, communities are solving individual and community-wide resource and advocacy problems. At the same time, researchers have been studying the effects of this pedagogical model on the multiple constituencies of service-learning - students, instructors, educational institutions, and communities - and have been publishing their findings. [author]