The Unheard Voices: Community Organizations and Service Learning

by Randy Stoecker (Editor), Elizabeth A. Tryon (Editor)

Overview

Service learning has become an institutionalized practice in higher education. Students are sent out to disadvantaged communities to paint, tutor, feed, and help organize communities. But while the students gain from their experiences, the contributors to The Unheard Voices ask, "Does the community?"

This volume explores the impact of service learning on a community, and considers the unequal relationship between the community and the academy. Using eye-opening interviews with community-organization staff members, The Unheard Voices challenges assumptions about the effectiveness of service learning. Chapters offer strong critiques of service learning practices from the lack of adequate training and supervision, to problems of communication and issues of diversity. The book's conclusion offers ways to improve service learning so that future endeavors can be better at meeting the needs of the communities and the students who work in them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592139965
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	08/21/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	262 KB

About the Author

Randy Stoecker is a Professor in the Department of Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, with a joint appointment in the Center for Community and Economic Development. He is the author of Research Methods for Community Change: A Project- Based Approach andDefending Community: The Struggle for Alternative Redevelopment in Cedar-Riverside (Temple).

Elizabeth A. Tryon is a community partner specialist for the Human Issues Studies Program at Edgewood College’s School of Integrative Studies, Madison, Wisconsin.

Table of Contents

Preface 
1. Unheard Voices: Community Organizations and Service Learning 
2. Motivations of Community Organizations for Service Learning 
3. Finding the Best Fit: How Organizations Select Service Learners 
4. The Challenge of Short-Term Service Learning 
5. Managing Service Learners: Training, Supervising, and Evaluating 
6. The Heart of Partnership: Communication and Relationships 
7. Service Learning in Context: The Challenge of Diversity 
8. One Director’s Voice 
9. Principles for Success in Service Learning— the Three Cs 
10. The Community Standards for Service Learning 
Epilogue: The Two Futures of Service Learning 
References 
Contributors 
Index

Editorial Reviews

"The Unheard Voices is one of the most accessible service-learning texts I have read, due in large part to the willingness of the contributors to let the community participants’ voices be heard extensively. This book provides a compelling vision and concrete steps for moving forward in new directions. It is a unique and important contribution to the service-learning literature and one that has the potential to change the discussion about and the future of service learning. In the end, The Unheard Voices will make our programs more effective"
—Stephen Fisher, Professor Emeritus, Emory & Henry College

From the Publisher