Service-Learning and Social Justice: Engaging Students in Social Change

Service-Learning and Social Justice provides everything administrators and teachers need to build service-learning programs that prepare students as engaged citizens committed to equity and justice. Cipolle describes practical strategies for classroom teachers along with the theoretical framework so readers can deftly move beyond the book to a meaningful program for their schools. Writing in a conversational style, the author explains service-learning's unlimited potential in terms of student empowerment and academic achievement and as tool in developing a student's a lifetime commitment to service and social justice. This book's contribution to new knowledge and practice is three-fold as it promotes (a) understanding of how individuals become committed to social justice, (b) identification of how one's orientation to service-learning and social justice changes as one develops a more critical consciousness, and (c) practical strategies that teachers can use to support and guide students as they become more critically aware. Practitioners will improve their service-learning programs and have a framework for preparing students for their experiences, as well as ideas for reflection activities. Educators will gain a better understanding of the psychology and sociology of developing a commitment to service for social justice.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Understanding the Social Justice Model for Service-Learning Chapter 2 Overview of the Social Justice Model for Service-Learning Chapter 3 Becoming Committed to Service Chapter 4 Becoming Committed to Social Justice Chapter 5 Developing a Critical Consciousness Chapter 6 Navigating the Stages of Critical Consciousness Development Part 7 Engaging Students in Social Change through Service-Learning Chapter 8 K–12 Education: Strategies for Effective Service-Learning Practices Chapter 9 Higher Education: Strategies for Critical Consciousness Development Chapter 10 Program Development: Strategies for Building and Sustaining Your Service-Learning Program Chapter 11 Program Development: Continuing the Journey

About the Author :
Susan Benigni Cipolle has over thirty years of teaching experience, and as a service-learning practitioner and administrator, she was instrumental in developing and institutionalizing the service-learning program at Benilde-St. Margaret's School in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. The author is also an adjunct faculty member in the College of Applied Professional Studies' Graduate Program in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota and has presented several papers on service-learning and social justice at national conferences.

Review :
This wonderfully readable and very useful book is a gift to educators interested in social justice, service learning, and critical pedagogy. Drawing on many years of classroom practice and on the long-term development of students, Sue Cipolle offers a well-researched and well-written text that asks, Can service-learning develop critical consciousness and orient students towards social change? Happily, the answer is 'yes' and this book shows us why and how. In these pages, Sue Cipolle illuminates a social justice practice for education where critical pedagogy and Catholic social teachings intersect. New teachers will be especially helped and inspired by the many possibilities she unveils. Service learning can be a salve to individual conscience or an opening for collective action. In this provocative and practical text Sue Cipolle explores how service learning can be practiced as a form of critical pedagogy and its role in developing a counter-hegemonic, critical consciousness. It is a must read for teachers and administrators at all stages of education striving to connect service learning to the wider struggle for social justice. I'm a rabbi based in New York who works on integrating Judaism with social justice and service. This book is one of the clearest and most thoughtful articulations of how to do good service/social justice that I have ever read. Sue Cipolle offers an inspiring picture of how to weave service learning and justice work together with religious teachings, and to use these practices to transform a school community. This book provides teachers, teacher educators, and school administrators practical guidelines for creating service learning programs in which students grapple with concrete issues of equity and justice. Cipolle provides a readable theoretical exploration of critical consciousness and its relationship to service learning. In describing concrete examples of how her students engaged directly with issues of justice, she provides us with an inspiring reminder that students crave the opportunity to realize their potential to improve their world. Cipolle's research provides readers with a provocative analysis of how we can more effectively move our students from a charity orientation to one that embraces the ambiguity inherent in service learning for social justice. Her theoretical analysis, combined with concrete examples and suggestions, will engage anyone interested in the field of education.. This book provides teachers, teacher educators, and school administrators practical guidelines for creating service learning programs in which students grapple with concrete issues of equity and justice. Cipolle provides a readable theoretical exploration of critical consciousness and its relationship to service learning. In describing concrete examples of how her students engaged directly with issues of justice, she provides us with an inspiring reminder that students crave the opportunity to realize their potential to improve their world. Cipolle's research provides readers with a provocative analysis of how we can more effectively move our students from a charity orientation to one that embraces the ambiguity inherent in service learning for social justice. Her theoretical analysis, combined with concrete examples and suggestions, will engage anyone interested in the field of education. Susan Cipolle, in her new book, Service-Learning and Social Justice: Engaging Students in Social Change, is asking educators to embrace the social justice orientation that drives many to service-learning pedagogy in the first place. She advocates for and presents a social justice model of service-learning based on her experiences weaving "multicultural education, Catholic social teachings, service learning, and critical pedagogy....Cipolle's work provides encouragement and a framework to actualize an idea often voiced in service-learning practice.