Literature review – Service-learning
2.7 Service-learning and citizenship
2.7.1 Evidence for citizenship claims – the softer side
The research in the nineties, and even some studies today, did not problematise the notion of citizenship or civic responsibility. The researchers operationalised the concept and measured its presence in student surveys. For example, in an early study investigating student benefit in terms of civic outcomes, Astin and Sax (1998) collected survey data from 3 000 students from 42 institutions. They concluded that “participating in service during the undergraduate years substantially enhances the student's academic development, life skill development, and sense of civic responsibility" (p. 251). In their study they reported the top four reasons for participating in service-learning were a) to help other people b) to feel
personal satisfaction c) to improve my community, and d) to improve society as a whole.
They conceptualised this as a strong indication of “civic responsibility and service to others”
(p. 254). A closer look at the operationalisation of ‘civic responsibility’ reveals that they investigated students’ commitment to:
• participate in a community action programme,
• help others who are in difficulty,
• help promote racial understanding,
• become involved in programmes to help clean-up the environment,
• influence social values,
• influence the political structure,
• serve community.
It is evident that a variety of understandings of citizenship are present in these statements.
As this was a pre-/post-service participation survey, perhaps what is not surprising is that the students who scored the highest on these items in the pre-test, became those who participated in service. This study is significant because it highlights the possible influence of self-selection when considering studies (of student benefit) that compare student outcomes for students who did/did not participate in service-learning.
Also in the late nineties, Eyler and Giles (1999) surveyed more than 1 500 students and found that participating in “high quality service-learning leads to the values, knowledge, skills efficacy and commitment that underlie effective citizenship” (p. 164). The citizenship model employed by Eyler and Giles (1999) consisted of five dimensions of citizenship:
• Value (I ought to do) - which they equated to a sense of social responsibility,
• Knowledge (I know what I ought to do and why) – equating to expertise, and an understanding of social problems,
• Skill (I know how to do) – equating with an awareness of how to proceed,
• Efficacy (I can do, and it makes a difference) – belief in self-efficacy,
• Commitment (I must and I will do) – indicating their willingness to act.
More recently, Wang and Jackson (2005) expanded this model of citizenship by splitting the
‘value’ dimension into value and responsibility. For them, value equates to: “[T]his activity is important and we should do it” (p. 40) and responsibility to: “[I]t is my responsibility to do
it” (p. 41). This differentiation enabled them to establish that students are more willing to allocate higher scores to beliefs rather than actions, that is, “students have more confidence in their beliefs than their ability to act” (p. 46). Thus, students may be willing and believe it is important to be involved in social issues, but not necessarily that it is their responsibility.
A recent review study (Reason & Hemer, 2015) examined the instruments used to assess civic outcomes in higher education. The authors concluded that very few of the measures focused primarily or comprehensively on civic outcomes. They also found that most of these measures were quantitative in nature and used student self-report data. As a result, they suggest that qualitative research in this area would help to address the ‘how’ and ‘why’
questions associated with civic learning in the process of service-learning courses.
A recent book entitled Student civic outcomes in service learning (Hatcher, Bringle & Hahn, 2017) contains a chapter from Hemer and Reason where they report the current state of the field in terms of civic outcomes, by looking at civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic attitudes and values. In reporting the research on civic knowledge outcomes, they include studies which examined the development of cognitive skills related to problem solving in the real world, as well as studies which regarded students’ understandings of the global context (historical, political, cultural, religious) in which communities exist. In terms of civic skills, they report studies which highlighted “cognitive, interpersonal, analytical, leadership and communication skills” (Hemer & Reason, 2017, p. 31). Civic values included interest in social and political information, willingness to engage and a sense of efficacy; in addition, they cite
“respect for freedom and dignity, empathy, open-mindedness, tolerance, justice, promoting equality, integrity, and responsibility to a larger good” (p. 31). Examples of civic behaviours that result from service-learning include becoming involved in service-based organisations, taking up student leadership roles or participating in student organisations, and discussing social issues with peers. Civic identity is a relatively new addition to this portfolio of civic outcomes. Student engagement is one possible expression of civic identity, and is understood as ranging from students who are non-engagers, apolitical engagers, social- cultural engagers to super engagers.
There is thus a great deal of evidence for civic outcomes from service-learning documented in the book (Hatcher et al., 2017). The evidence presented ranges over disciplines and approaches and the variety of understandings of civic involvement and/or citizenship is apparent in each author’s presentation of the state of the research in their field. The gentle approach to citizenship is clear in Bringle, Hatcher and Clayton’s (2006) definition of civic engagement, presented in the 2017 volume:
Civic engagement is a subset of community involvement and is defined by both location as well as process (it occurs not only in but also with the community). According to this distinction, civic engagement develops partnerships that possess integrity and that emphasise participatory, collaborative, and democratic processes (e.g., design, implementation, assessment) that provide benefits to all constituencies. (Bringle et al., 2006, in Hatcher et al., 2017, p. 258)
In the same volume Mitchell and Rost-Banik (2017) introduce a more critical approach to the notion of civic outcomes. Using critical theory, they ‘trouble’ civic outcomes, stating “we must question who and what informs our conceptions of the civic and civic outcomes” (p.
186). The next section highlights research that has tried to ‘trouble’ ideas about citizenship.