Synopses & Reviews
This book offers a comprehensive rethinking of the theory and practice of service-learning in higher education. Democratic and community engagement are vital aspects of linking colleges and communities, and this book critically engages the best practices and powerful alternative models in the academy. Drawing on key theoretical insights and empirical studies, Butin details the limits and possibilities of the future of community engagement in developing and sustaining the engaged campus.
Review
"Dan W. Butin is the kind of critical friend every service learning advocate should excitedly embrace. This book is intellectually honest, theoretically sophisticated, and deeply impassioned. Butin embodies the kind of 'scholarly criticality' that anyone interested in moving the field forward should cherish. This book will shake your assumptions about service learning in all the right ways." - Joel Westheimer, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Canada
"This book is a deeply critical, reflective forum for considering questions related to where service-learning has come from and where it is going or ought to go. As such, it provides practitioners with an invaluable asset with which to inject a deeper criticality to theoretical and strategic debates and relate more collegially with the rest of the academy. I have felt for some time that to promote such reflection, service-learning needs a shake-up. Butin's path-breaking book is just what the doctor ordered." - Tim Stanton, Stanford University School of Medicine, USA, and co-author of Service-Learning: A Movement's Pioneers Reflect on its Origins, Practice, and Future and Engaged Scholarship Toolkit for Research Universities and Their Faculties
"Dan W. Butin's Service-Learning in Theory and Practice: The Future of Community Engagement in Higher Education was published just as the service-learning movement reached an important milestone . . . Butin's text serves as a good source for engaging stakeholders in a process of inquiry and a pedagogy of out that just might prove transformative from the inside out." - Teaching Theology and Religion
About the Author
Dan W. Butin is the founding dean of the school of education at Merrimack College. He is the editor and author of over fifty books, articles, and book chapters, including the books Service-Learning in Higher Education, Teaching Social Foundations of Education and Service-Learning and Social Justice Education. Dr. Butins research focuses on issues of educator preparation and policy and community engagement. Dr. Butin has been the assistant dean of the school of education at Cambridge College and a faculty member at Gettysburg College. Prior to working in higher education, Dr. Butin taught middle school, in an adult GED program, and was the chief financial officer of Teach For America. More about Dr. Butins teaching and scholarship can be found at http://danbutin.org/.
Table of Contents
PART I: DEFINING AND DISTURBING SERVICE-LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION * Conceptualizing Service-Learning * The Limits of Service-Learning * The Possibilities of Service-Learning * PART II: INSTITUTIONALIZING SERVICE-LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION * Disciplining Service-Learning * Majoring in Service-Learning? * The Futures of Service-Learning? * PART III: EMBRACING A SCHOLARLSHIP OF ENGAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION * Towards a Theory and Practice of Community Engagement * Living With(in) the Future: Higher Education Trends and Implications for Service-Learning