| Summary: | Students can undergo changes in their personal perspectives through experiential learning (Kolb, 1984). Experiential Learning Theory allows for transformative learning, as researchers discover which factors contribute to a change in point of view. Many students gained knowledge through experiential learning in their communities during the fall of 2015 Religion/Interdisciplinary Privilege and Poverty course. This dissertation qualitatively studied a sample of students in this
course to determine the degree to which social justice service-learning, as an example of Experiential and Transformative Learning Theories (Kolb, 1984; Kolb & Kolb, 2005; Mezirow 1981, 1997, 1998, 2000), represented civic learning pedagogy. Research questions focused on understanding how students' civic perspectives were influenced by their participation in social justice service-learning pedagogy. Findings revealed that prior learning generated appeal to participate in the content
of social justice service-learning and consideration of students' civic perspective; involvement in effectively facilitated social justice service-learning on campus and off asked students to contemplate their civic perspectives; institutional and cultural factors positively impacted social justice service-learning. The results of this study can help future civic learning course designers to make effective choices, thereby increasing their ability to facilitate a civic perspective for
their students. Critical/social justice service-learning is referred to as social justice service-learning in this dissertation, given that educators seek to achieve social justice through this form of pedagogy.
|
|---|
