Building Relationships for Critical Service-Learning

Abstract

Service-learning is a pedagogical approach that higher education can use to promote civic engagement among students, but it has not fully realized its original civic purpose. Butin (2010) argues that to meet its civic mission, service-learning must move toward a more justice-oriented pedagogy that empowers stakeholders to bring about social change. To that end, we worked toward a more critical model of service-learning, first proposed by Mitchell (2008), that encourages a social change approach to service-learning. We propose that students’ relationships with their professors, community partners, and peer mentors help facilitate this goal. We examined how these three types of relationship impacted students’ civic engagement. Results demonstrated that each type of relationship had a different impact on students’ developing civic engagement attitudes. This article discusses how such relationships can help achieve critical service-learning’s goal of developing more participatory and transformational citizens.

Service-learning represents an important pedagogical approach that higher education can use to promote civic engagement among students (Duncan & Kopperud, 2008). Civic engagement, defined by Thomas Ehrlich (2000), is using political and non-political means to engage with a community to make a positive difference in the quality of life for members of that community. Higher education is uniquely positioned to encourage civic engagement because it can provide students with a space to recognize injustice and inequality, to obtain skills to speak and act on unchallenged systems, and to gain intercultural competencies to promote public action (Musil, 2009). We propose that service-learning students’ relationships with their professors, community partners, and peer mentors further develop their civic engagement attitudes.

Research demonstrates a wide range of benefits of service-learning for students including significant gains in social skills, academic performance, personal insight, and cognitive development (Celio et al., 2011; Yorio & Feifei, 2012). These benefits in student outcomes reveal the positive impact of service-learning coursework on students’ personal and professional development (Butin, 2010). Such glowing findings might mislead us into thinking service-learning has only positive outcomes. A significant number of theorists and researchers have cautioned that the potential for service-learning to create transformative change may instead represent only ameliorative change that unintentionally reinforces or even strengthens power imbalances (Boyle-Baise, 1999; Cross, 2005; Himley, 2004; Hullender et al., 2015; Rosenberg, 1997; Sleeter, 2001; Varlotta, 1997).

Critical service-learning pedagogy addresses these concerns and aims to promote social justice by educating students on how to deconstruct theoretically, empirically, and practically the power structures that underlie many traditional views of the world (Campus Compact, 2000). A specific focus of critical service-learning pedagogy is on the power dynamics that exist between those with the power and privilege to help and the recipients of that help, who often have far less power and privilege. This transformative learning requires a shift from taking for granted assumptions about how the world works to a more critical stance, questioning one’s assumptions while seeking more inclusive and reflective thoughts that can guide one toward more socially just action (Baxter Magolda & Boes, 2017; Brukardt et al., 2004; Butin, 2010; Campus Compact, 2000; Kegan, 2000; Mitchell, 2008; O’Meara & Niehaus, 2009; Saltmarsh & Harley, 2008; Varlotta, 1997).

Critical service-learning is a model that adopts a social justice framework, as opposed to a more “apolitical helper” model of service-learning, and demands an analysis of power structures and social change (Mitchell, 2008; O’Meara & Niehaus, 2009; Rice & Pollack, 2000; Rosenberger, 2000). A critical model of service-learning includes: (a) providing a social change orientation; (b) working to redistribute power; and (c) developing authentic relationships. Mitchell (2008) states that these authentic relationships challenge the self-other binary, emphasizing interdependence and reciprocity, and demand an analysis of both power structures and social change. A major focus of this study is to understand how service-learning students’ relationships facilitate critical service-learning, specifically when it comes to the students’ civic engagement attitudes. We explored the relationships between the students and their teachers, their community partners, and their peer mentors.

Researchers find extensive evidence that relationships often occur through formalized mentoring (Fassinger, 1997; Hay, 1995). Within higher education specifically, peer mentoring of undergraduate students increases their sense of belonging, competence, identity, professional development, academic learning, and social responsibility (Bernier et al., 2005; Campbell et al., 2012; Parks, 2000; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). We define service-learning mentoring as a relationally focused process that supports students’ professional, social, and civic development through reflection on what it means to help, the role of power in helping, and how personal values influence helping (Harkins, 2017). While there is substantial literature supporting mentoring models (DuBois et al., 2011; Lunsford et al., 2017), integrating peer-mentoring into a service-learning classroom is not common practice. We found only one study that examined peer-mentoring for service-learning students (Haddock et al., 2013), and the focus was on the mentors (college students) rather than the mentees (exclusively at-risk college students).

For the current study, we explored the impact of three relationships on service-learning students’ civic attitudes, including civic knowledge, skills, values, behaviors, and identity (Ehrlich, 2000; Hemer & Reason, 2017; Torney-Purta et al., 2015). Service sites included an after-school tutoring and mentoring program, an urban debate league, and work with an advocacy homelessness organization. A unique component of this study was exploring service-learning peer mentoring. Peer mentoring included undergraduate students with experience in service-learning, known as service-learning assistant mentors (SLAMs), mentoring service-learners as they worked with a community partner. Based on findings from Robinson and Harkins (2018) regarding components of successful faculty mentoring relationships, faculty helped SLAMs to build an alliance with students through support and motivation. We expected that not only would building relationships with the professor and community partner increase civic engagement attitudes for service-learners but also students receiving peer mentoring would have attitudes reflected a stronger sense of civic engagement than service-learners who received no peer mentoring. We predicted associations between relationship quality with SLAMs, professor, and community partners and our outcome variable of civic engagement attitudes.

Method

Results

Discussion

Our findings support associations between building relationships and students’ post-service-learning civic attitudes. Specifically, we found that service-learners who felt positively about their relationships with their professors, community partners, and peer mentors reported more intention to be civically engaged in the future, including plans to engage in more volunteer work, to participate in community action programs and services, to help others in need, to make a positive difference, and to help clean up the environment. Students described this change in attitude as a shift in their understanding of their own goals and interests. One student noted, “I am really leaning towards research so it’s giving me insight into researching educational inequities.” Another student commented on feelings of connectedness and commitment to the community partner: “I really enjoy being a server. I may continue afterwards a little bit. I don’t want to just stop going, and the kids will be like ‘what happened to [student]?’”

Additionally, we found that service-learners who had positive service-learning relationships with their professors and community partners reported more social justice–focused attitudes, including understanding the roots of social injustice, the need for public policy change, the need to change people’s attitudes, and the need for more equality in society. In focus groups, students reflected on how witnessing inequality at an individual level led to consideration of larger systemic concerns:

Relationships built at the service sites also led students to reflect on the ways that they saw themselves in those with whom they were working:

Service-learning activities, though, are not always considered within a social justice–oriented framework; many view this type of service-learning as too time consuming and resource intensive (Harkins et al., 2018). Professors worry that prioritizing critical service-learning will interfere with more “relevant” course learning and will, in turn, have negative effects on tenure or promotion (Cooper, 2014). This reluctance to dedicate classroom time to reflecting critically on conducting service and making intentional and meaningful connections between these experiences and classroom content seems to be reflected in some of the frustrations expressed by students searching to connect the two course components:

Service-learning is a pedagogy integrating academic learning and community service. Providing institutional community support in the form of peer mentoring may provide models for students’ theoretical and experiential sociopolitical understanding, awareness, and advocacy. Additionally, it provides the relational support needed for professors to feel less encumbered and more willing to engage in critical service-learning. In this way, SLAMs have the potential to serve as a bridge between service experiences and students’ personal interests and experiences in the classroom.

The challenging nature of working in community settings with diverse populations and complex needs seems to be reflected in the negative correlations we found between conflict and antagonism felt by the students in their community partner relationships and their expressed civic attitudes about social justice and diversity. It seems that as students move outside traditional classroom settings, with well-defined power structures and metrics for success, experiences of conflict or misalignment in work with community partners may lead them to question their own competence or commitment to social justice and diversity. The power of the SLAM-student relationship, then, lies in the demonstrated correlation between feelings of guidance, nurturance, and reassurance of competence and increases in students reported civic attitudes. The biggest impact of the SLAM-student relationship was on a service-learner’s intention to be more civically engaged in the future, suggesting that SLAMs served not only as role models of continued civic engagement for service-learners but also as guides for making meaning of the kinds of challenging community experiences that called service-learners’ social justice attitudes into question. SLAMs worked with students throughout the semester both to validate these experiences for their peers and as examples of having found the kind of meaning and purpose in community work that allows for sustained engagement.

The role of SLAMs as models and facilitators of meaning-making is further supported by our findings that peer mentoring enacted deeper relationships between the student and SLAM through increased levels of intimate disclosure. While students reported that relationships with faculty also led to increased intention to be more civically engaged in the future and in reported political, diversity, and social justice awareness, student-perceived conflict and antagonism with their professor led to decreased reports of diversity and social justice awareness. Students’ civic engagement attitudes can thus be influenced in either direction by relationships with their course professor. These findings suggest a need for more resources and smaller class sizes to support peer-mentoring to ensure both students and professors establish and maintain the relationships needed to facilitate positive outcomes in the classroom and beyond. Moreover, the relationships between intimate disclosure and civic engagement support past research showing students’ level of intimate disclosure with professors declines during a student’s development (Wu & Hughes, 2015). We interpret these findings as reflective of the power dynamics between students and their professors and the perception of authority that faculty members hold. This supports the need for peer mentors in the service-learning classroom where service-learners can connect with peers who may be more relatable, particularly when students experience distress or a sense of conflict or inadequacy in their community settings.

Nurturing such critical interpersonal relationships will require more intensive time for students and professors and will require institutional support to create the space for the intentional building of such relationships. Institutional support could include increasing the course credit for service-learning courses for students and providing advanced learning credits, assistantships, stipends, and research opportunities for peer mentors. In a similar way, institutions could offer reduced course loads, course assistants, and stipends to support professors.

Limitations of this study include a lack of focus on whether the community partner-student relationships positively impacted the community partners’ missions. Further research is underway to address this important aspect of critical service-learning outcomes. Our small sample size of participants from one university in the Northeast likely lessens the generalizability of the findings to other higher education institutions. Additionally, students’ engagement in different services throughout the local community may have impacted the mentoring relationships they developed and their overall experience. Varying levels of experience across classes, for both professors and SLAMs, may have also influenced the results. For example, faculty-community partner relationships were more long term for the students in the groups with SLAMs, which likely impacted the results. Further research is underway controlling for length and quality of faculty-community partner relationships to determine the impact on critical service-learning outcomes for all stakeholders.

Our findings suggest that critical outcomes are beginning to be realized in this pilot service-learning mentoring program, particularly as students plan to engage in civic action and report improved awareness of social justice and diversity. Differentiation among relationship and civic outcomes for SLAMs compared to professors and community partners suggest the importance of relationships in service-learning and a heightened need for a formal and ongoing training program for SLAMs. Although the themes that emerged from the focus groups support the reported CASQ and NRI findings of increased political, diversity, and social justice awareness and plans to engage in civic action in the future, longitudinal research is needed to determine if students who report more civic awareness engage in more civic action over time. Integrating information regarding students’ mentoring needs and civic understanding would help those in higher education build more tailored and beneficial transformative service-learning programs.

The development of both civic action and social justice attitudes in service-learners demonstrates that building relationships with stakeholders in service-learning courses supports the development of these students as justice-oriented citizens (Mitchell, 2008; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). By expecting students and stakeholders of service-learning to engage in relationship building, institutions of higher education model for service-learning students how to be caring, justice oriented, and active citizens in their communities.

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Authors

DEBRA A. HARKINS, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Suffolk University, Boston. Dr. Harkins specializes in community engagement, service-learning, and multi-tiered mentoring and has been teaching a service-learning course, Community Psychology, every semester for more than 15 years.

LAUREN I. GRENIER, MA, is a 4th-year clinical doctoral student in psychology at Suffolk University, Boston. Ms. Grenier specializes in service-learning and mentoring and has been co-piloting a service-learning course, Socially Responsible Leadership, for two years.

CYNTHIA IRIZARRY, PhD, is Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism at Suffolk University, Boston. Dr. Irizarry specializes in organizational communication, public relations, and health communication and teaches a service-learning oriented course in Public Relations.

ELIZABETH ROBINSON, EdD, is Assistant Professor of Education at Suffolk University, Boston. Dr. Robinson specializes in English as second language and teacher and urban education and teaches the service-learning courses Introduction in Teaching and Community Tutoring.

SUKANYA RAY, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology at Suffolk University, Boston. Dr. Ray specializes in ethnic minority health disparities, Asian mental health, and resiliency and teaches experiential learning courses, including Asian Psychology.

LYNNE-MARIE SHEA, MA, is a 3rd-year clinical doctoral student in psychology at Suffolk University, Boston. Ms. Shea specializes in community engagement and humility and has been co-piloting a service-learning course, Socially Responsible Leadership.