Social Work Commons^™

“There's No Participation In ‘Our’ Participatory-Action Research Project”: Overcoming Hierarchies In Service-Learning Partnerships, Julia Van Der Ryn, Omar Carrera

Julia van der Ryn

While strategic planning is widely recognized as a central component in the development of sustainable service-learning partnerships and university programs, institutions working to create organizational change often do not have a framework for how to address the power differentials among a diverse group of constituencies. Further, this framework should include all stakeholders in the analysis of the social, historical, and political contexts around service-learning partnerships.

In this study, participants in the service-learning program at Dominican University of California (DUC) explored the complexity of the social forces that influence communication and collaboration in service-learning. DUC faculty members designed a multiphase research …