Community-Centered Service Learning

Many colleges and universities seek to enliven their service missions through service learning. This article critically analyzes the service-learning literature, illustrating the idea that higher education institutions traditionally operate under an orientation of doing for communities rather than doing with them. Doing for is typically aligned with a charity perspective and emphasizes the position of privilege of campuses in relationship to their local communities, whereas a doing with perspective of service emphasizes collaboration and mutuality. Using special focus colleges and universities as a model, the authors provide suggestions on how to shift the paradigm to one that is more community centered.