Service-Learning and Social Justice

Engaging Students in Social Change

By (author) Susan Benigni Cipolle

Publication date:

15 March 2010

Length of book:

172 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Dimensions:

241x162mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781607095187

Service-Learning and Social Justice provides everything administrators and teachers need to build service-learning programs that prepare students as engaged citizens committed to equity and justice. Cipolle describes practical strategies for classroom teachers along with the theoretical framework so readers can deftly move beyond the book to a meaningful program for their schools. Writing in a conversational style, the author explains service-learning's unlimited potential in terms of student empowerment and academic achievement and as tool in developing a student's a lifetime commitment to service and social justice.
This book's contribution to new knowledge and practice is three-fold as it promotes (a) understanding of how individuals become committed to social justice, (b) identification of how one's orientation to service-learning and social justice changes as one develops a more critical consciousness, and (c) practical strategies that teachers can use to support and guide students as they become more critically aware. Practitioners will improve their service-learning programs and have a framework for preparing students for their experiences, as well as ideas for reflection activities. Educators will gain a better understanding of the psychology and sociology of developing a commitment to service for social justice.
This wonderfully readable and very useful book is a gift to educators interested in social justice, service learning, and critical pedagogy. Drawing on many years of classroom practice and on the long-term development of students, Sue Cipolle offers a well-researched and well-written text that asks, Can service-learning develop critical consciousness and orient students towards social change? Happily, the answer is 'yes' and this book shows us why and how. In these pages, Sue Cipolle illuminates a social justice practice for education where critical pedagogy and Catholic social teachings intersect. New teachers will be especially helped and inspired by the many possibilities she unveils.