The contribution of Service-Learning programs to the promotion of civic engagement and political participation: A critical evaluation

Abstract

Service-Learning programs at school and at university level are commonly considered as reliable instruments to increase civic engagement. In the last years, within Service-Learning Research a new paradigm arose understanding itself as non-foundational and critical. This study differentiates this critical perspective by offering a secondary analysis of available evaluations of Service Learning in the empirical and normative dimension. The analysis reveals that the empirical impact of Service-Learning instruments on political participation is not as distinct and clear as commonly expected. Evaluation results are often inconsistent and make general positive statements difficult. The normative evaluation shows that one has to avoid Service-Learning programs generating depoliticized participation and to impede tendencies to misuse Service-Learning programs as a mere substitute of governmental social policy. All things considered turning Service Learning into an effective means to promote participation, the existing programs have to be improved.

Keywords

service learning civic education learning of democracy participation civil society social policy empirical evaluation normative evaluation secondary analysis

Introduction: What is Service Learning?

Learning of democracy is nowadays an essential part of civic education. By dealing with the topic democracy, by participatory instructional formats, and by the democratic designing of institutional structures at school, learning of democracy aims at the students’ development of democratic habits and attitudes strengthening their public participation.

Against this background, Service-Learning programs at school and at university level are considered as reliable instruments to increase civic engagement. Service Learning is said to help students to learn about political institutions and democratic politics. In addition, it is expected to generate positive civic attitudes and increase students’ involvement with their communities in special and political participation in general.

Service Learning has been active in the United States over the past two decades. In Germany and Canada, Service Learning has been getting a real boost at schools and universities since the least years.

Significant for Service Learning is the linkage between students’ activities of civic engagement in communities and the planning, preparing, and reflection of these activities in class. In Service-Learning courses, students will acquire the professional and social competence necessary for civic engagement by learning based upon problem solving (as established by John Dewey, 2006 [1916]). That way, according to his theory, arises a balance between civic engagement and cognitive learning.

Research on Service Learning: Critical evaluation in the empirical and normative dimension

Referring to the assumed outcome of Service Learning on civic engagement and political participation, one can distinguish between two different paradigms:

On one hand, there are the traditional and more technical approaches that presume Service Learning as transformational and effective and emphasize positive outcomes on civic engagement, principles of good practice, and individual acts of charity (Jones et al., 2013: 217). Viewed from this traditional perspective, Service Learning successfully aims at promoting the civic engagement of students by acquirement of democratic attitudes and skills. This means to strengthen civic society and democracy from “bottom up” by creation of new social relations as Benjamin Barber calls for in his theory of a “strong democracy” (Barber, 1984). Furthermore, Service Learning can help to produce social capital by creating social relations beyond those within families and relationships (Robert Putnam calls this “bridging”) (see Frank et al., 2009: 155).

As this discussion about Service Learning is carried on especially by advocates (Eby, 1998), this paradigm concentrates on the virtues and benefits of service learning. All in all, it is characterized by a significant lack of critical reflection “[that] has hindered the development and advancement of the practice” (Furco, 2011: ix).

In the last years (especially in the United States) within Service-Learning research, a new paradigm arose understanding itself as non-foundational and critical. These approaches challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions underlying much service-learning practice and research. They criticize that “Service is awarded something of a ‘sacred’ status so it is neither popular nor politic to raise questions about the assumptions or unintended effects of volunteerism which often characterizes service-learning” (Eby, 1998: 2).

In the following, I will have a closer look at the results of this critical research concerning the contribution of Service-Learning programs to the promotion and strengthening of civic engagement and political participation. Concerning its methodology, the research project is based on a secondary analysis of available evaluations of Service-Learning programs and a critical assessment of the theoretical premises of these programs. For heuristic reasons, this critical approach to Service-Learning research can be analytically distinguished in two different branches: an empirical and a normative branch of evaluation. Calling this an analytic distinction is insofar justified as these two branches of evaluation correspond much closer than usually supposed: Looking at the ontological foundation of (moral) valuations from the perspective of meta-ethics, a close relation between moral qualities and descriptive qualities (facts) can be identified, which is called “supervenience”:

the supervenience of valuational properties or concepts on nonvaluational ones – derives from the very nature of valuation: all valuations require descriptive, nonvaluational criteria on grounds. That is, there cannot be an endless descending series of valuations, one depending on the next, ad infinitium, valuations must terminate in nonvaluational grounds. (Burth, 2010: 430)¹

So the phenomenon of supervenience proves the close relation between moral judgments and empirical descriptions.

At first, I will begin with the critical empirical evaluation of Service-Learning programs in the United States and Germany and its results.

Empirical evaluation results: Effects of Service Learning at school and at universities

The empirical evaluation of Service-Learning programs deals with the following research-topics:

Exploring the causal effectiveness of Service-Learning programs:

… Thus, we should know whether, under what conditions, for which students, and for what purposes it [Service Learning, hpb] “works.” To that end, we should test causal theories in which service-learning is either the independent or the dependent variable, or both. The strongest causal evidence comes from large-scale data, especially if it is longitudinal, or from field experiments that have control groups (both of which, unfortunately, are expensive). (Levine, 2011: 344)

The performance of Service-Learning programs with regard to the clients of community service programs, the participating communities, and the engaged students itself.

Concerning the promotion of civic attitudes, political interest, political knowledge, willingness to political participation (voting), and civic engagement, American evaluations stated positive effects of Service Learning at school (Billig et al., 2005; Bradley, 2005; Morgan and Streb, 2002: 180; Stafford et al., 2003: 10; Youniss et al., 1997).

Summarizing, it can be stated that most of the US-American Studies certify positive effects to Service Learning concerning cognitive and social-affective competences and the willingness to civic and political engagement. But there are also critical voices saying that the benefit of Service Learning is overrated (Barlow, 2003). A report from Brandeis University criticized the deficient sustainability of some American Service-Learning programs: “a year after the end of the initial program experience, most of the impacts found at the end of the program had disappeared” (Melchior, 1999: 15). But taken as a whole, these critical voices form a minority group among the researchers.

However, there are clear indications of the deficient quality of numerous studies. Most of them do not follow a coherent research agenda. Furthermore, there is a significant lack of experimental or quasi-experimental design, and most of the studies use secondary data with limited explanatory power. So Furco (2013) concludes, “Yet despite these positive findings, skepticism regarding the academic merits of service-learning persists” (p. 11).

German research on Service Learning at school is characterized at present by a lack of substantial evaluation studies (cf. Sliwka et al., 2004; Speck and Backhaus-Maul, 2007; Seifert and Zentner, 2010; Seifert and Nagy, 2012; Seifert and Nagy, 2014). Therefore, proponents of service learning in Germany often refer to the positive results of American studies (cf. Sliwka et al., 2004). To make things worse, among the few German evaluations, there is hardly one exploring the impact on civic engagement. An exception is the study of Reinders (2006) who states a connection between civic engagement and the variable “Pro-sociality” which is a pre-stage of political competence. In his view, “Pro-sociality,” which is an attitude that can be acquired by service learning, is an important precondition for political participation. Other authors (Düx and Sass, 2007; Prein et al., 2009), however, regard the acquisition of real action competence as a more important influence on civic engagement.

Service Learning is not only a method for teaching and learning at school. Service-Learning courses are also offered at many universities in the United States as well as in Canada and Germany. Whereas there are no German studies exploring the effects of Service Learning at universities, there are quite a lot of US-American studies concerning this topic. Regarding the United States, several studies (Astin et al., 2000; Gray et al., 2000; Jacobson et al., 2011; Lies et al., 2012; Lin et al., 2014; Nino et al., 2011) confirm the positive effects of service learning on pro-sociality and the disposition to civic engagement. But so far, there is no evidence that an increased willingness to civic engagement will actually result in active participation. It might be that an uttered willingness to civic engagement has to be regarded as a mere declaration of intent. The relation between the intentions and the real actions of social actors is a central theoretical and methodical problem within every action-based social research.

Besides further theoretical work, it needs randomized longitudinal studies that are expensive and complex to tackle this problem. But there is just a significant lack of such studies within the evaluation of Service-Learning programs. Furthermore, “the existing research is generally based on self-reported attitudes and behavior. Such studies are subject to many possible biases …” (Gray et al., 2000: 37). Therefore, even positive findings concerning the impact of Service-Learning programs on civic engagement have to be examined with certain reservation.

Normative evaluation results: Service Learning as participation under the influence of power structures

In an essay dealing with the main issues of current research on Service Learning, Peter Levine (2011) draws the following picture:

[There is,] a second reason to study service learning: as an opportunity to investigate issues such as ideology, faith, race, class, gender, disability status, human development, education, deliberation and politics. Service-learning places young people, teachers, and community members in complex social situations in which they are supposed to understand challenging issues … Most of the chapters in this volume use service learning as a context in which to study the intersection of social justice and education or human development. Service learning is ‘problematic’ … because the discussion and activity that takes place under its banner is controversial and morally complex. (p. 344)

This is a very precise description of the topics and the research questions that constitute the normative evaluation perspective on Service Learning.

As in every assessment, the normative evaluation of Service-Learning Programs depends on the critical theories that form the premise. Regarding the critical discussion of Service-Learning programs, we can identify quite a number of different normative theories serving as proposition. In the following, I will present three normative theories and their critical perspective on Service-Learning programs:

Critical Theory of Politics;

Critical Theory of Knowledge;

Theories of strong political participation.

Critical Theory of Politics. This normative branch relies on the premises of different critical theories of politics and society articulated, for example, by theorists such as Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, and Paolo Freire (Clark and Nugent, 2011). Following Gramsci, for example, “social reproduction … is a process in which the social institutions and positions of power within society are protected and upheld by the dominant culture at expense of marginalized communities” (Clark and Nugent, 2011: 8). From this perspective,

service learning programs that use groups with more social power, can often lead to feelings of patronization and alienation … Service-learning enacted within the context of unbalanced power relationships can also lead to greater feelings of difference and intolerance rather than moving towards cultural understanding and cross cultural relationships … Often, in service-learning characterized by unbalanced power relationships, the dominant group uses their social status to create change for an underserved group, instead of working with a marginalized community to help themselves. (Clark and Nugent, 2011: 8)

In analyzing Service-Learning programs, this critical perspective aims at working to redistribute power equally among all participants in the Service-Learning relationship.

Another premise of the normative branch is a Critical Sociology of Knowledge stating that “knowledge and the meaning individuals make are influenced by dominant systems of power legitimizing particular interests based on social identities (e.g. race, sexual orientation, class, gender) and excluding others …” (Jones et al., 2013: 220). Observing the participants of Service-Learning programs from this perspective, one can spot counterintuitive outcomes of these programs as they produce “increased prejudices, reinforced stereotypes and unexamined beliefs” (Jones et al., 2013: 214, see also Schwarz, 2011: 38). By this, the programs tend to “reify the very inequities service-learning educators seek to disrupt” (Jones et al., 2013: 215). There is also a cognitive tendency among Service Learning promoters and student participants to interpret social need and the service of volunteers aiming at satisfying that need as individualized phenomena and not as social ones. There are several cases in which the participation in the Service-Learning program “strengthened the [students] sense that poverty is the result of personal [and moral] deficiency rather than stemming from systemic inequities” (Schwarz, 2011: 38). Thus, “students sometimes ignored the structures of power, privilege, and oppression that made them ‘lucky’ enough to get to do service …” (Hill-Jackson and Lewis, 2011; Jones et al., 2013: 227, q.v.). Such cognitive deficits can produce structural shortcomings of Service-Learning programs, as they “exaggerate the importance of the person who serves, demean the person served and ignore resources in the community such as peers, families and community leaders.” In the end, such programs “fail to recognize the political, social and economic factors which create the need” (Eby, 1998: 4).

A third proposition for the normative evaluation of Service-Learning programs are theories of Political Participation (Barber, 1984; Bittlingmayer et al., 2013; Zimenkova, 2013). They discuss Service Learning as a significant “practice of Education for Active Democratic Participation” (Zimenkova, 2013) and ask for its potential concerning “teaching and learning political participation” (p. 171): “Is service learning … the best form of learning for active citizens’ participation and for the self-perception of students as part of the democratic system?” (Zimenkova, 2013: 173). One of the different Service-Learning programs under critical examination is the German so-called Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung (BLK)-program (2002–2007) “Live and Learn Democracy” (cf. Abs et al., 2007). The BLK-program envisions community service and service learning as a “way to develop competencies in social and political activities… [it claims] to connect democracy and citizenship education through community service” (Zimenkova, 2013: 177). Following Dewey’s concept of “democracy as a lifeform,” the BLK-program postulates that the scope of the notion of democracy is not restricted to the governmental and democratic institutions of the political system itself: Democracy also comprises the groups and organizations of civil society, and its strength as well as the legitimation of the state depends on the attitudes and support of the citizens throughout society (cf. Himmelmann, 2007). In their critical perspective of the BLK-program, the normative theories of participation differentiate between “social” and “political learning,” respectively, between political and depoliticized citizen education (Bittlingmayer et al., 2013: 265 f; Zimenkova, 2013: 182). Their fundamental criticism is that Service-Learning programs developed within the BLK-program tend to “merely correct failures of the educational and social service by volunteering situation-dependently” (Zimenkova, 2013: 177). Thus,

the participants (of Service-Learning programs) are not asked to reflect on their opportunities within the system of education, their citizens’ rights and powerlessness or power to change the disadvantages of the system. They are supposed to accept the [political] system as it is and perform additional voluntary activities in order to compensate for failures of the system with regard to their individual cases. (Zimenkova, 2013: 176)

Such Service-Learning programs fail to enable their participants to reflect the political conditions of their voluntary activity, to visualize possible links to established policies, and to discuss relevant political alternatives concerning the particular social problem (Bittlingmayer et al., 2013: 270).

There is a close connection between such a depoliticized understanding of participation and the use of Service-Learning programs as a deliberate political strategy to cut down investments in governmental social policy by replacing social policies with volunteering services. Observations confirming this assumption were made in the United States (Eby, 1998) as well as in Germany, where authors like Bittlingmayer et al. (2013: 267ff) refer critically to the so-called “Activating State” as a paradigm of social and labor market policy promoted by the Red–Green coalition (1998–2005). However, it should be clear that “volunteerism and private programs cannot substitute for appropriate governmental action and social policy” (Eby, 1998: n.p.). Even in the case of perfectly designed Service-Learning programs, volunteerism is no “viable response to deeply rooted social issues” (Eby, 1998: n.p.).

Conclusion: Service Learning and political participation

Basically, Service-Learning programs are a promising instrument to promote civic attitudes and political participation. But evaluation analysis reveals that the impact of Service-Learning instruments on political participation is not as distinct and clear as commonly expected. Evaluation results are often inconsistent and make general positive statements difficult.

To turn Service-Learning programs into an effective means to promote participation, the existing programs have to be improved. This cannot be carried out without further scientific research and practical improvement. In this connection, only the linkage of a critical empirical and normative assessment of Service-Learning programs can strengthen their impact. In the empirical dimension, we need longitudinal studies analyzing the linkage between civic attitudes acquired by adolescents in Service-Learning programs at school and the participation performed by adults in later years. An empirical theory explaining non-profit-making behavior is still a desideratum.

In the normative dimension, we have to avoid Service-Learning programs generating depoliticized participation. This can only be achieved if the outspoken reflection of the political context of community volunteering is part of every Service-Learning program. This is not so hard to do; therefore, I am more optimistic in this regard than some of the normative criticisms presented here. On the other hand, one should beware of raising exaggerated expectations in people’s readiness to participate politically that cannot cope with social reality.

In the end, the scientific discussion of participation can also learn from the normative discussion on Service Learning: It becomes clear that the device “enhancing participation at any cost” is wrong. Political participation has to be reflected, just, and authentic. As a social experiment under real-life conditions, Service-Learning programs (as every political participation) have to be qualified and have to reconsider the interests of all participants involved: the students, the communities, and the clients of such programs, especially those who are socially deprived and marginalized.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This article is based on a presentation given at the International Association for Citizenship, Social and Economics Education (IACSEE) Conference: “Political and economic systems under challenge – assessing the role and potential of citizenship education,” University of Goettingen/Germany, 2–4 July 2015.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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