Transforming Service Learning Into Critical Service Learning

Service learning is a pedagogical approach that engages youth in achieving learning goals that link communities and schools through intentional, structured activities (McReynolds, 2015). Through service learning, the practitioner engages students in projects that serve the community while building social, civic, and academic skills to help them learn about others. Critical service learning, on the other hand, builds on service learning and expands to include social justice principles. Critical service learning as an approach compels youth to interrogate systems and structures of inequality and distribution of power and to seek to develop authentic relationships among all participants (Mitchell, 2008). It also encourages participants to examine issues of power, privilege, and oppression within the service activity by questioning hidden biases and assumptions concerning race, class, and gender and to challenge the status quo by working toward changing inequities within social and economic systems (Cipolle, 2010). Engaging in critical service learning, as a therapeutic strategy, allows youth to con¬template community problem- solving through critical thinking that raises questions about the roots of social inequality. For example, youth who embark on service learning may develop a wellness project that considers the effect of health on mood and behavior. Students may incorporate simple physical exercises and healthy eating tips and create a nutritional food menu for students to share with their peers and families. Students who participate in this same example from a critical service learning framework not only will do all of these activities but also will critically analyze factors that contribute to healthy living. For example, students may explore the barriers to accessing fresh fruits and vegetables in communities that are food deserts (communities with a scarcity of mainstream markets that have fresh fruits and vegetables). Students may delve further to consider the economic and political decisions that reduce access to healthy foods in their neighborhoods. Students may perform action research through facilitating a shopping field trip to neighborhood, and mainstream food outlets to inspect and compare the produce for quality and price value. As a result, students may bring their findings to their local political office to request sup¬port to improve local food outlet resources.