Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to explore service learning from the perspective of the wider community, examining service learning as an approach to learning and teaching that challenges ideas of higher education as a “sacred cow” that is distant, elitist, and exclusive. Service learning promotes student attainment of knowledge, values, skills, and attitudes associated with civic engagement through a structured academic experience within the community. It aims to bring reciprocal benefits to both the student and the community partner, and the sharing of knowledge across community-university boundaries. As a pedagogical approach, its purpose is to enable the development of links, relationships, and partnerships between educational institutions (schools, colleges, universities) and the wider community, creating opportunities for mutual gain to emerge.
The days of the sacred cow up on the hill [i.e., the university] … not being involved [in community] because students end up coming out of college knowing very little about the practical working world, that doesn’t achieve anything … so I mean if the college isn’t involved in linking with the community they are losing out.
(Community Partner 1)
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© 2012 Lorraine McIlrath, Ann Lyons, and Ronaldo Munck
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McIlrath, L. (2012). Community Perspective on University Partnership—Prodding the Sacred Cow. In: McIlrath, L., Lyons, A., Munck, R. (eds) Higher Education and Civic Engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137074829_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137074829_9
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