Session Information
WERA SES 11 E, Teacher Education: Instructional Models and Methodologies
Paper Session
Contribution
Proposal Overview
International service learning (ISL) continues to expand as a pedagogy that fulfills growing demands for universities to provide global learning opportunities for students in the context of intensifying calls for higher education internationalization (Larkin, 2013). This research investigates the influence that humanitarian discourses have on students’ perceptions of the possibility for social change through ISL. There is a growing recognition in the critical research literature that identifies how power and privilege are mediated through the ISL experience and questions if it is possible, within the context of a colonial institution, the university, to reframe ISL relationships. Additionally, a number of recent studies critique the impact that ISL programs have on host community partners, a voice previously silenced in research designed to enhance practices or to measure the transformative impact of ISL on student participants (Kiely, 2005). Focusing on moments of discomfort (Dear & Sharpe, 2013) and drawing attention to Otherness as a focal point in ISL pedagogy (Himley, 2004) take ISL practice and research in a direction which engages students in a deeply reflexive and situated ISL experience.
Working within the Social Justice and Peace Studies program at King’s University College, Ontario, Canada, this paper shares research findings from an investigation of the Guatemala Solidarity program. This program is built on a commitment to experiential learning as a site to problematize social and international relationships and to make visible issues of individual and global power and privilege (Comacho, 2004). As such it is committed to a “sustained, consequential and immersive practice of community based-learning within the legitimate space of an academic program” (Butin, 2004). The Guatemala Solidarity program investigates the possibilities and limitations for engaging students with an intentional community, Nuevo Horizonte. This cooperative community is dedicated to educating Global North citizens about the impact of protracted civil conflict on the community and its efforts to rebuild in the post-conflict era. This research will engage with students over a six month period as they prepare and engage in ISL within the Nuevo Horizonte community. It examines the possibilities and limitations of ethical relationships between participants and hosts.
Conceptual Framework & Research Questions
The conceptual framework for this research is theoretically informed by Mignolo’s (2007) work on liberation and solidarity as strategies to counter the enduring inequalities between Global North and South. It is a critical ethnographic inquiry into the process of preparing, engaging and reflecting on the ISL experience with students, and explores the formation of relationships between students and residents of Nuevo Horizonte from a decolonizing perspective (Tuwahi-Smith, 2012). It follows students through all three phases of the program and seeks to identify key moments of disruption, insight, discomfort and change, from both students and community perspectives. The research questions framing this study ask:
- How do students engage with the concepts of liberation and solidarity?
- How do the concepts of solidarity and liberation inform the process of relationship formation?
- How do community hosts respond to students’ presence within the community?
- How do are the moments of disruption, insight, discomfort and change represented?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
References Angelides, P. (2001). The development of an efficient technique for collecting and analyzing qualitative data: The analysis of critical incidents. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(3), 429-442. Butin, D. (2011). Service-Learning as an Intellectual Movement: The Need for an “Academic Home” and Critique for the Community Engagement Movement, pp. 19-36. In T. Stewart and N. Webster (Eds.) Problematizing Service-Learning: Critical Reflections for Development and Action. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Butin, D. W. (2007). Justice-learning: Service-learning as justice-oriented education. Equity & Excellence in Education, 40(2), 177-183. Himley, M. (2004). Facing (up to) 'the stranger' in community service learning. College Composition and Communication, 416-438. Kiely, R. (2004). A chameleon with a complex: Searching for transformation in international service-learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 5-20. Larkin, A. M. (2013). Internationalizing Canadian Higher Education through North-South Partnerships: A Critical Case Study of Policy Enactment and Programming Practices in Tanzania. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Western Ontario. London, Ontario. Madison, D. S. (2011). Critical ethnography: Method, ethics, and performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mignolo, W. (2007). Delinking: The Rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality. Cultural studies 21(2-3) pp. 449-514. Pompa, L. (2005). Service-learning as crucible: Reflections on immersion, context, power, and transformation . In D. W. Butin (Ed.), Service- Learning in Higher Education: Critical Issues and Directions (pp. 173-192). New York: Palgrave. Sharpe, E. K., & Dear, S. (2013). Points of discomfort: Reflections on power and partnerships in international service-learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 19(2), 49. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books. Todd, S. (2012). Learning from the other: Levinas, psychoanalysis, and ethical possibilities in education. SUNY Press.
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