Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning
Fall 1995, pp. 19-32
The Irony of Service: Charity, Project and
Social Change in Service-Learning
Keith Morton
Providence College
This paper explores a common understanding ofservice as a term encompassing a continuum from
charity to social change and describes the implications this understanding hasfor service-learning
in higher education. Based upon a review of alternative theories, a student survey and interviews
with practitioners, the author argues that there exists a series of related but distinct community
service paradigms-charity, project and social change-each with its own logic, strengths,
limitations and vision of a transformed world. Integrity in service-learning, it is suggested, comes
not by movingfrom charity to social change, butfrom working with increasing depth in a particular
paradigm....an ironic situation occurs when the consequences of an act are diametrically opposed to
its intentions, and the fundamental cause of the
disparity lies in the actor himself and his original purposes.
Reinhold Niebuhr (in Gene Wise,
American Historical Explanations)
A significant body of research on the impacts
of community service on college student development and academic learning has begun to
emerge during the past five years. While it is
clearly not conclusive nor complete-longitudinal studies on the relationship between or among
service-learning and mastery of content, career
choice, voting behavior, charitable giving and
activity in civic and voluntary associations are
noticeably absent-the evidence suggests that
community service linked to academic study is an
effective teaching tool. (Boss, 1994; Cohen &
Kinsey, 1994; Markus, Howard, & King, 1993)
As valuable and reasonably consistent as
the emerging data is, it does not shed much light
on the nature and meaning of the community
service that is performed. A common language
for discussing service is only slowly emerging in
service-learning organizations, and it is an abbreviated and blunt language at present. Questions
are being raised about how one assesses community impact, beyond the rudiments of volunteer
hours and being invited back. In addition, it is
increasingly common to come across, at conferences and meetings (e.g. of the Campus Outreach
Opportunity League, the National Society for
Experiential Education and Campus Compact),
language that describes a continuum of activity
ranging from service to advocacy.
Dwight Giles and Janet Eyler (1994a) of
Vanderbilt University, among others, have
launched an ambitious and necessary three-year
research project that attempts to isolate the duration and intensity of service as variables in student
development and learning. Drawing on a theory
of experiential education grounded in the philosophy of John Dewey (1994b), they outline a
research agenda of nine fundamental questions.
The first two of these questions are the subject of
this paper: "Is there a continuum of servicelearning experiences?" and "Do different servicelearning experiences have different impacts because of individual characteristics?" (pp. 92-93).
Answers to these questions are important because they suggest that service experiences may
be optimally structured to enhance learning. In
the pages that follow, I describe my reflections on
these questions, review a cross-section of related
theoretical literature, and report on our approach
to creating a new public and community service
major at Providence College. Among other considerations in creating the major has been the
problem of how to structure service opportunities. As a partial response to this problem I have
begun to systematically interview students, faculty, administrators and community partners about
the nature and meaning of their work. The preliminary evidence, I will suggest, does not sup19
