Service Learning, also called Engaged Learning or Civic Education takes place through voluntary engagement outside the classroom in addition to learning in the classroom. Service Learning through engagement is a form of teaching and learning which combines social engagement and subject learning (Seifert, Zentner & Nagy, 2012). It can enhance learning by overcoming the gap between theory and practices, increasing the employability chances, developing job-related knowledge such as teamwork, communication and improving civic responsibility. This definitely supports the achievement of social cohesion and identifying members of the society as a valuable asset beyond their potential employability as workforce (GEAR, 2021). 

In educational theory, the demand for social commitment and responsibility in educational institutions is not new. Service Learning has its origins in the educational pragmatism of John Dewey (Sporer, 2011, p.70). The social philosopher Dewey, an important pioneer of modern pedagogy, is regarded as the mastermind of action and experience-oriented ´pragmatic learning` (Laven, 2006, p.145.). This was understood to be brought about by the process of globalization, with a particularly strong role of media and telecommunications that bridge the local and global (Jameson & Miyoshi, 1998). This cultural dimension, this  ́clash of cultures` (Huntington, 2015) or as described in the visual and art sciences as the "iconic turn" (Boehm, 1994, p.11-38), can better be questioned through the individual aesthetic/artistic discussion. In Service Learning as in many other areas, the role of art is poorly understood. Concurrently, arts participation is falling among younger adults and with it most forms of civic and social engagement (National Endowment for the Arts, 2009, p.1). 

On the other hand, Europe has an increasing interest in Service Learning and its embedment in the school curriculum as a methodology to engage students in the activities where they can learn about community needs and develop civic responsibility and social inclusion (EUROSTAT, 2019). The lack of social and civic competencies, especially among the youth, in Europe has been the topic of research, policy documents as well as needs assessment reports, which concluded that the lack of such competencies aggravates the situation for the early school leavers (Brunello & De Paola, 2014; Widmar, 2015). The analysis of several cases from different European countries has proven that Service Learning is, however, effective in enhancing social and civic competencies, especially when achieved in higher education. Hence, transmitting the skills and competencies that guarantee the required professional and personal development is an important task for the universities especially for teacher education departments. 

The present work therefore aims to provide an initial conceptual reflection on Engaged Learning through art education. The overarching question is that of the possible link between art and Service Learning (Weinlich, Laven, 2020). Based on the hypothesis that art is changing the potential of Service Learning, the paper initially aims to investigate which cultural approaches and potentials associate art with Service Learning. Secondly, the paper examines how these approaches and potential can be put into practice; based on the experiences of people involved. 

The study was conducted in the context of a project on Service Learning at University College of Teachers Training in Vienna. Within the Erasmus+ Project SLUSIK (Service Learning – Upscaling Social Inclusion for Kids), the University College is engaged in developing a toolkit for teachers to support the promotion of social inclusion, the acquisition of social and civic competencies as well as scaling up good practices of Service Learning with the help of engagement of teachers and teacher educators already engaged in Service Learning activities. This paper tackles the attitudes of the people who have been implementing Service Learning at tertiary level and who have been taking courses on Service Learning toward the needs to improve Service Learning in Austria where Service Learning is an emerging topic in general but rarely a component of teacher education curricula. This study used several methods to reach the attitudes of pre-service teachers, teachers and teacher educators in art based education toward Service Learning and the inclusion of Service Learning in the curriculum of teacher education. The participants of the study were teacher educators who include Service Learning in their teaching methods, teachers who work in the practice school of the University College and the pre-service teachers who are primary school teacher candidates taking the courses with a special focus on art. The data were collected through interviews, observation and questionnaires. Setting was the courses on art-based subjects such as drawing, textile and handicraft. A questionnaire was applied to 50 students who rated the importance of Service Learning through a rating scale (5 point likert scale) under three main categories: service-learning for social commitment and responsibility, understanding diversity, developing mutual respect. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 teachers and 5 teacher educators including questions to systematize and complement the data retrieved from questionnaires. As the course instructors, researchers also included observation through the semester to triangulate the data. Questionnaires were analyzed to reach descriptive statistics on the rating scale through SPSS, where data from interviews were analyzed to reach themes rather than smaller chunks or codes. Larger categories, in other words, domains (Spradley, 1980) were generated and the data were not quantified. The domains were semantically related to each other and grouped under main themes to support the data from questionnaires. Three researchers’ independent domain analyses assured intercoder agreement.

The study showed that Service Learning offers excellent opportunities for art based subjects in the field of art education, textile and crafts and it revealed the areas that require improvement in the curriculum. Beside the rating-scale findings and the domains reached, this presentation will discuss the necessities of the module to be expanded to a greater part of the curriculum and the suggestions of teachers and teacher educators. The methods that are used in the module of Service Learning are created through quality criteria which are: real need, curricular connection, student participation, engagement outside school, reflection and recognition. It was found that Service Learning and community engagement can address various intersecting inequalities such as age, disabilities, nationality, gender and others. It targets issues from a multiple position of marginalization (e.g. homelessness, educational inequity) and can help to explain diverse and complex structures of co-existing and intersecting social challenges. Based on the study, it can be said that Europe is at risk of becoming an even more divided society. SLUSIK wants to tackle the problem of early school leaving in Europe and help students to social and civic competencies with the help of service-learning, hence art based subjects hold great opportunities to achieve these competencies.

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