School-community relations as part of student learning is an attempt to break the isolation of the school in an urban setting (Warner, 1997).[1] Schools expand the learning environment outside the school building by providing students with learning opportunities in the community and out in nature, as well as making the schoolhouse “Everybody’s house” (Warner, 1997).This can be accomplished by inviting guests from the community to the school, field trips, service learning, and partnerships with institutions and firms (Epstein, 1995; Hann, 2008; Ingram, 2005), along with getting the school noticed in the community (Gallagher, Bagin & Kindred, 1997), by home-pages, exhibitions of student work and community events where students are actively involved (Beaulac, Olavarria & Kristjansson, 2010), etc. Academic research on the shape and scope of these relations and how they are implemented into the curriculum is scarce. Very few studies have been done on student learning outside of the school site and almost none in Iceland. However, much has been written about school-community relations in the form of handbooks for schools (Christiansen, 2010; Pawlas, 2005; Sanders, 2006). Service learning has, nevertheless, interested researchers although many questions remain unanswered about its prevalence and impact (Billig, 2000). Shumer and Cook (1999) evaluated the status of service learning in the United States and estimated that 12 million secondary students were engaged in service activities and almost 5.5 million connected their service with the curriculum through service learning.

The aim of this study is to reveal what schools do to open themselves up to their communities as part of student learning, i.e. how the learning environment expands out of the school building into the community and nature, and how the community is welcomed into the school.

Research questions include:

• How do schools work with firms, institutions, associations, museums and other schools, including the preceding and following stages, in their attempt to enrich student learning?
• How do schools introduce their students to the neighbourhood, the city or town as a whole and the natural world inside and outside the city?
• How do schools involve people from the community in school activities and the learning process and what effort do they put into having them participate in school practices?
• How do students experience school-community relations and how do they see their connection to the learning process?

This study is a part of a large research project on teaching and learning in Icelandic schools for ages 6 to 15, encompassing the school environment, school management, students’ learning, teaching methods, attitudes and school-community relations including parental involvement.

[1] Parental involvement is often included in school-community relations. This study, however, did not include parental involvement. Considerably more research has been committed to the role of parents in school activities than other aspects of school relations with their communities. School communication with stakeholders and information delivery to promote and nurture community understanding and support the school is also seen as part of school-community relations but has been omitted in this research (Gallagher, Bagin & Kindred, 1997).

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