Social Work and Service Learning: Partnerships for Social Justice

Service learning and social work education comprise an exciting, yet underutilized, partnership. This book represents the first comprehensive overview of this active and empowering approach to learning in social work. Both educators and practitioners will discover conceptual and practical guidance for developing productive community-based projects. Often envisioned as located at the midpoint on a continuum from volunteer work to internship, service learning combines the opportunity to serve with the opportunity to learn. It offers community agencies a chance to collaborate with academic colleagues to meet identified community needs, frequently with an explicit social justice dimension. The contributors illustrate how service learning facilitates students' understanding and interacting with community members as partners, not clients. Service learning encourages students to use critical thinking skills to reflect on their work and its implications. This combination of study-action-reflection in conjunction with course content is highly effective. The book explores its subject from several perspectives. The first section serves as a conceptual and theoretical orientation to service learning in social work. The second section offers models that illustrate many ways of implementing service learning across the components of the social work curriculum. The final two parts of the book focus on evaluation and service learning in the broader context of civic engagement.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Service Learning and Social Work Education: A Natural but Tenuous Connection Chapter 2 The Components of Service Learning as Pedagogy in Social Work Education Chapter 3 Service Learning Across the Social Work Curriculum Chapter 4 Social Welfare Policy and Services: Service Learning through Social Policy Projects in Human Service Organizations Chapter 5 Social Work Practice: Beginning Practice Skill Development in Introduction to Social Work Courses: Mobilizing Partnerships between Youth Development Agencies and Social Work Education through Service Learning Chapter 6 Research: Infusing Service Learning into Research, Social Policy, and Community-Based Practice Chapter 7 Human Behavior and the Social Environment: An Oral History Service-Learning Project Chapter 8 Human Diversity: Service Learning and Gender Studies within a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) Context Chapter 9 Populations-at-Risk/Immersion Experience: Social Work in the Sun: Service Learning at Summer Camp Chapter 10 General Education: Herding Cats and Making History: Service Learning in a Large General Education Social Welfare Course Chapter 11 Developing Partnerships between Community and Curriculum: How Does the Team Assess Student Outcomes? Chapter 12 Service Lerning for Social Justice: Mandate for Long-Term Evaluation? Chapter 13 Service Learning in Social Work: A Curricular and Evaluative Model Chapter 14 Social Work, Service Learning, and the American Democracy Project: The Creation of a More Socially Conscious Campus Community

About the Author :
Meryl Nadel, MSW, DSW is an associate professor and director of the Center for Social Research in the Social Work Department at Iona College, New Rochelle, NY. In addition to service learning, her research interests include social work/social welfare history, prevention, qualitative methods, and social work involvement in the summer camp movement. Virginia Majewski, MSW, PhD is professor and associate dean of the Indiana University School of Social Work in Indianapolis, IN. In addition to service learning as a pedagogical approach for social justice, her research and teaching interests include hunger and food insecurity, rural community organizing, and American Indian issues. Marilyn Sullivan-Cosetti, MSW, PhD is an associate professor and director of the Seton Hill University Social Work Program, Greensburg, PA. Her research interests include service learning in the academy, juvenile female violent offenders, and community organization practice.

Review :
This is an important book for social work. As a profession, we have long endorsed the concept of service learning but this book provides background, theoretical perspectives, assessment strategies and examples that allow both beginning and experienced educators to develop excellent service learning opportunities for students. Its focus on social justice and empowerment, and its connection with EPAS standards make it a valuable contribution to the social work literature. This book brings together the parallel worlds of service learning and social work education in a way that informs both fields. It articulates ways in which a service-learning approach can enhance social work education on the BSW and MSW levels by its attention to community impact, civic engagement, and social justice learning. As a learning modality, it has much potential for our field. Social Work and Service Learning is a fabulous roadmap for integrating service learning across the curriculum while enhancing opportunities for student understanding of the critical principles and values of social work practice. The text is well organized and provides wonderful resources, practical tools, and information to consider when planning an integrated curriculum. The edited volume Social Work and Service Learning: Partnerships for Social Justice is a serious attempt at highlighting a few social work educational efforts engaging social work more deeply in the important educational dialogue. It situates service learning within the ongoing ideas and educational discussions about civic engagement and the nature of the university's relationship to its community and society . . .[The editors] have gone beyond creating a how-to service learning manual by allowing the reader to learn and understand the thoughts, actions, and activity outcomes of authors who have stories to tell about their service learning experience. In Social Work and Service Learning, the editors document a robust array of best practices for any community organization seeking to develop meaningful service-learning projects. Chapters on service learning's best practices help us shape our community organization's current partnerships with universities, and to attract new ones. For managers at community organizations who are so often caught up in the tyranny of the urgent, the text outlines helpful models for setting up service-learning partnerships that show lasting impact on program outcomes without draining staff time and energy. Additionally, the text gives community organizations a thorough understanding of pedagogical goals for service-learning projects, which prepares them to receive and serve students better than ever before.