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Teaching The "Heart And Soul" Of Citizenship: Service-Learning As Citizenship Education, Bernadette Sun Chi

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Troubling trends in political disengagement among young people include decreasing knowledge of and interest in political issues as well as lower rates of voting compared to previous generations. To potentially address this CO~ service-learning has often been promoted in public schools as a means of educating active citizens, among other outcomes.

Despite the expansion of service-learning programs, the relationship between service-learning and citizenship outcomes deserves further study. This dissertation examines the following questions: Do teachers consider "citizenship" an explicit goal for service-learning experiences in K-12 schools? How do teachers and students define what it means to be a "good citizen"? …

Service Helix: A Grounded Theory Of College Student Development And Outcomes Through Involvement In Community Service, Mary Kay Schneider

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Community service and service learning have been lauded as ways of teaching civic and social responsibility during college. In order to better understand the concept of social and civic responsibility and whether students gravitated toward these concepts, this study was undertaken. The grounded theory was designed to understand students' experiences with community service, what they see as outcomes from their involvement, and the role of responsibility in this dynamic.

Grounded theory was utilized as the methodology because of the lack of research and theory regarding service and the outcomes for the servers. To achieve depth of understanding, information-rich participants were …

Service Learning: Discovering Effective Communication Strategies By Emphasizing The Community's Perspective, Elizabeth Oppe

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Service learning is a broadly defined term that may encompass a spectrum of projects and course work ranging from acts of charity to activism for social change. "The aim of service learning is always to heighten awareness in our communities that we have the capacity to both learn from and serve each other... and work toward a more just and egalitarian society" (bttp://www.invcol.pdx.edulic.htm). Another description of service learning from Brevard Community College's The Power (1994) explains that, for many community organizations, students augment service delivery, meet crucial human needs, and provide a basis for future citizen support. The Power depicts …

Associations Of Civic Attitudes In Service Learning, Christina M. Roemer

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Civic responsibility is comprised of actions and attitudes associated with democratic governance and social participation. Students enrolled at institutions of higher education have the opportunity to transform their social interests into advocacy through personal connections with the community. Service learning is an effective method of increasing citizenship participation and civic responsibility by incorporating community service activities with academic coursework.

This study used survey research to examine the civic attitude scores of service learning students at a large, public, mid-Atlantic state university. The research questions attained information on the associations among students who perform written and discussion reflection activities (outside of …

A Case Study Of Community Action Service Learning On Young, Gifted Adolescents And Their Community, Alice Wickersham Terry

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

This study documents the evolution o fservice learning in America and the types of service learning. This case study examined the perception of 28 young, gifted adolescents involved in a Community Action service learning project toward their project, the effects of this involvement upon them, the impact of the project on the rural community, and the effects of the methodology that was used in the classroom from 1998-2000. The study examined this case in relation to an earlier pilot study by the researcher.

Data were gathered through focus group and individual interviews, observations, and a review of documents. The importance …

The Ideal Characteristics Of Foxfire Type Projects As Perceived By Teacher Advisors, Robert Dennis England

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Eliot Wigginton, after six weeks of classroom teaching at the Rabun-Gap Nacoochee School in rural north Georgia, was frustrated because he found that his students were not interested in the courses he was prepared to teach. He had graduated from Cornell University in May 1966 with a master's degree and had come to Rabun-Gap to instruct mountain children in English and geography. He realized, fortunately, that if his students were bored it was he who had bored them. He believed that it might be better him to seek another career (Wigginton, 1972).

The Effects Of A Community Involvement Program On Adolescent Student's Citizenship Attitudes, Stuart Harold Stockhaus

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Upon looking at any of the many lists of social studies instructional objectives. one can hardly avoid finding an objective called citizenship. A National Council for the Social Studies sponsored publication on civic education states, "In one sense, desirable citizenship traits in a democratic society remain the same today, in the midst of rapid cultural change. as they were hundreds of years ago. Effective participation by the individual in public affairs continues to require the same four essentials: knowledge. thought. commitment, and action. In application, however. each generation redefines good citizenship to fit demands of the times."