Complexities!

1. Complexities! Student ResistanceUnheard VoicesInstitutionalizing and Sustaining

2. Complexity #1: The underside of service-learning: Student resistance

3. The underside of service-learning The complexities that emerge when undergraduate students engage with ill-structured, complex social issues in the community service settings typically associated with service-learning courses

4. The underside of service-learning • Some students just “don’t get it” • Cannot see the connections between their service work and the course content • Embark upon their service insincerely: severe consequences for service site and class (Jones, 2002)

5. Positive outcomes of service-learning • “Transformative potential” • Ability to connect subject matter with “real-life” experience: experiential learning • Personal development, critical thinking, sensitivity to diversity, and development of citizenship (Eyler and Giles, 1999; Jones, 2002)

6. …and the resistance emerges in • the intersections of negotiated student identities, • encounters in the borderlands, • and intentionally provoked classroom dialogue on privilege and power.

7. Recognizing Student Resistance: Three Vignettes Vignette One: Why Do We have to Talk about This? [Race] Vignette Two: The Provocateur Vignette Three: Blaming the Victim

8. Vignette Three: Blaming the Victim One student demonstrated active resistance to “serving with others.” This student did not have a problem with acknowledging his own sense of privilege (especially in terms of his family’s economic situation), however, this sense of privilege translated into a “blame-game” when this student discussed the overall course and service experience. This student wrote, “My experience in this class and at (the HIV service organization) has had more ups than downs. Never did I feel motivated to do anything during this course because most things were shown in ways to be untrue in the real world…”

9. Vignette Three: Blaming the Victim This student continued: “ I wish this class would focus more on service and what really happens in the real world and NOT try to make all people look like victims when in reality it is mostly their own faults. When I am at POHC and I see a client, I know it was their fault they have AIDS, and if for some reason the person has AIDS by something not of their causing, they will be a very small percentage that is that way. If you choose a way to live, and the consequence causes you to be in a position where you need to rely on a non-profit organization to survive, then you must first realize it is your fault for that…This is what I have seen and I feel that just because my views are different, and somewhat not entirely what you want in this paper, I should be respected that I had the courage to write what I truly felt, because I know some people did not.”[Gilbride-Brown, 2004]

10. Student resistance from our community partners’ perspectives “The resistance experience that I remember when I was providing direct supervision was one student who showed up maybe twice during the entire quarter, but was reporting to her T.A. that she had been coming as scheduled.  I was able to verify that this student was not showing up as she had stated.  This student then asked me to tell the instructors that she had been showing up, basically lie for her, and I would not do that.  Realizing that she would not pass the class, she started showing up more regularly, but she was going through the motions at that point and clearly became distant towards me after that.”

11. Student resistance from our community partners’ perspectives Some of our partners reported experiencing resistance in the following behaviors: • Students not showing up for their scheduled hours • Wanting to change their days/hours scheduled • Using cell phones • Not self-motivated, always needing to be directed

12. Complexity #2: Missing Voices

13. Context of Study • Service-learning literature speaks of transformative potential and significant positive outcomes for students. • Students are treated as race and class-neutral subjects. • Students of color are underrepresented in both: • College student outcome research in service-learning. • K-16 school-based service-learning participation rates.

14. Context of Study • Race in service-learning literature is largely treated as: • characteristic of community • topic necessary to discuss or integrate into classroom • K-12 data suggests • Positive growth in cognitive, interpersonal, and civic development • Higher Education data suggests • Positive growth in cognitive, interpersonal, civic development as well as persistence/self-efficacy.

15. Purpose of Study • Address two significant gaps in the service-learning literature • Focus squarely on the experiences of college students of color participating in a service-learning experience “within community.” • Apply a critical race framework to these students’ experiences and to service-learning • Interrogate normative service-learning narrative in order to suggest pathways to more inclusive and socially just research and practice

16. Ubuntu’s Impact Decrease • in gang activity • inunsafe sex practices Increase • in aspiration to and knowledge of college • in retention • in adopting the responsibilities of a role model or mentor

17. External Stakeholder Findings High school students • Academic Achievement )(Quantitative) • College Aspiration (Qualitative) • Risky Behavior (Qualitative) • Self-Confidence/Resiliency (Qualitative) Qualitative finding across high school and college students • Increased Retention/Reason to stay in school

18. College Student Retention Jen: So you feel like it was one of the reasons you stayed? Student: Yep, one of the reasons I stayed. I wouldn’t want the kids to be like “I like (college student)” and then all the sudden I am gone and then have to tell them I am gone. That would be messed up and I wouldn’t like it if I was a little kid.

19. College Student Retention When asked to think about college student’s connection with students and what was keeping him in school he offered the following: Ability – we all have it. There is more to us (African-American students) than what test show. We can do more than what school claims we can do.

20. “Emergent Themes” Findings • Service as racialized construct • Service-learning as critically important in predominantly white institutional context

21. “Service” as Racialized Construct College students viewed “service” as a racialized construct typified as a “white do-gooder” phenomenon. Did not describe their involvement as “service” • Simply helping out where they could • Saw it as being involved within own community and identified through similar life experiences

22. “Service” as Racialized Construct Jen: What I hear you talking about… people with excess resources want to do something so they don’t feel bad. When you do it, it is not about who has what. It is about being there for the person. Is that what I hear you say? Student: Yea Jen: Does race get involved in that at all? Student: Yes. Jen: Sometime it is characterized as this “white do-gooder”.. is that close…. I don’t want to put words in your mouth. Student: Yea, I don’t want to say that myself, but yea. They are the champions who come to everyone else’s rescue.

23. Service-Learning in Predominantly White Context Space as a release and time to rejuvenate • Able to come and speak first language • Students in the room have some idea about pressures • Connection with something beyond their daily environment This stands in sharp contrast to the high school students’ description of the environment

24. Service-Learning in Predominantly White Context Jen: Has the makeup of the class mattered to you? Student: When I am in the class I am a little more relaxed than other classes because that is what I am used to and I still haven’t adjusted to the way (the college) is, so when I am in there I feel like I can be myself a little more. Jen: Less to prove? Student: Definitely Jen: What kinds of things do people say? Student: Not really saying anything directed towards me or black people period, but sometimes white people are a little….. about some things they are under educated.

25. Service-Learning in Predominantly White Context Jen: Why do you sit in the front and not the back? Student: Because they expect me to sit in the back so I’m sitting in the front…they think I just don’t want to be there to learn any thing so I’ll sit in the back and fall asleep. Jen: Do you think it has to do with the fact that you are a black male? Student: Yea, I shouldn’t be here like the rest of us. Jen: So you enter the mentoring class, largely white. Has it mattered to you? How do you feel in the class? Student: I feel alright… a little bit more open, cause I know most of the stuff they’re going through I went through or could have gone through. I can relate to them.

26. Critical Analysis Findings • “Duress” vs. “Achievement” Discourse • Discourse as statements in their social contexts that contribute to the ways the context is understood, experienced, and imagined. • Disconnect with Freirean Conscientisization “Conscientisization” • “I think consciousness is generated through the social practices in which we participate.” • “Reflection and action upon the world in order to change the world”

27. Discourse of Duress College students participated in a discourse best characterized as a discourse of distress. Approach to Mentoring: • 4 out of 5 talked about never having any mentors that mattered • Felt an need to shield high school students from the bad stuff • Afraid of failing • Complications due to family circumstances

28. Discourse of Duress Approach to Mentoring • “Life isn’t any better because of college.” • “I don’t want to put my business on them.” • “College doesn’t think these kids should even be there.” • “How can you mentor when you have so many problems?

29. Discourse of Duress Classroom Behavior • Researcher observations: college students as disengaged, was I seeing resistance to the opportunity? • “Texting” • Working on computer • Not responding to instructions to greet mentees or to lead discussions • Irregular attendance or coming/going during sessions

30. Achievement Discourse High school students participated and constructed in a discourse best characterized by an achievement discourse that also permeated their approaches to mentoring and behavior in the classroom. Mentoring Behavior • Important to share in order to warn students about taking middle school seriously • Enjoyed the connections made with the middle school students • Quick to get middle school students on track without any cajoling • Drew links between their ability to survive their circumstances and the service-learning course and opportunity

31. Achievement Discourse Classroom Behavior • Trying out different concepts presented by instructor and seeing connections to what they might know • Drawing connections between course content, classroom discussion, and Robert Frost • Sharing personal stories because maybe it could help someone else • No assumption of college students having more capacity

32. But there is a disconnect… • College students could see the systemic pressures shaping paths/ choices and were trying to look up while being overwhelmed by what they were seeing • Lack of awareness of what to do • Watching words and unsure of the right time to speak • When time to speak became clear- they simply did not know what to say • Could not make the connection between something larger

33. But there is a disconnect… • High school students’ circumstances were full of barriers that were about far more than personal choices and consequences. • High school students had a innocence about them regarding the systemic pressures. They had bought into to an individualistic, meritocratic discourse.

34. Complexity #3: Sustaining High-Quality Service-Learning

35. Five Domains of High Quality Sustainable Service-Learning • Leadership and Vision • Curriculum and Assessment • Professional Development • Partnership and Community • Continuous Improvement From Learning that Lasts (2005), ECS.org