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Applications Of Developmental Theory To The Design And Conduct Of Quality Field Experience Programs: Exercises For Educators, Michele Whitman, Albert Erdynast

Service Learning, General

Much has been made in experiential learning circles of the implications of empirical findings in developmental psychology for the formulation of a theoretically convincing rationale for field experience education programs of every kind. Of particular significance has been the identification of cognitive structural stages of intellectual, moral, social and ego development through which individuals have been shown to progress--structural transformations of the individual's intra- and interpersonal capacities which closely mirror the traditionally articulated goals of higher education for students' growth. Even as such concepts have been advanced, however, practitioners have voiced persistent reservations about the theory's seeming elitism, the values …