Vincent, C.S., Awkward, R.J., Lefker, J., Lynch, C., & Moore, S.B. (2021). Critically engaged civic learning: A comprehensive restructuring of service-learning approaches. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 27(2). https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsloa.3239521.0027.205
Abstract
This article contributes to a long-standing conversation about the implementation of service-learning by proposing an updated revision for the 21st century: critically engaged civic learning (CECL). The term service-learning is problematic as it invokes inequitable power dynamics that inherently privilege one group over another, with more privileged groups providing “service” to marginalized groups (Bortolin, 2011). CECL shifts service-learning from a student-centered pedagogy to an equity-based framework that views all constituent stakeholders as invested partners in the co-design, implementation, and evaluation of CECL initiatives and is founded on redistributed power and authority to promote civic learning and social change. CECL is structured by six guiding principles: social justice, power dynamics, community, civic learning objectives, reflexivity, and sustainability. Consequently, we argue that CECL can be seen across four overarching outcomes—increased self-awareness, self-efficacy, and self-empowerment; increased awareness of civic agency; better understanding of community; and workforce preparation—which can be assessed through the CECL Inventory for Social Change (CECL-ISC) (Awkward et al., 2021).
Montalva Barba, M.A. (2021). (Re)enacting settler colonialism via white resident utterances. CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY, 47(7–8), 1267–1281. https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920520976788
Abstract
This is a qualitative study outlining the links between white resident utterances and settler colonialism. Specifically, this article provides evidence of how settler colonialism continues to operate in a progressive community, despite the narratives of community and diversity shared by research respondents. This is primarily done by the cultural master narratives that respondents uttered to make sense of “community” and “diversity” in a borough that is undergoing gentrification. Because master narratives are created and reinforced by the socialization process where whiteness is the norm, white utterances continue the settler colonial project that invests in separate white communities to maintain racial privilege. While prior studies have detailed the tensions between community and diversity, this study contributes to this debate by adding a settler colonial frame that validates the idea that in a progressive neighborhood, diversity becomes a violation of settler emplacement. These findings are particularly significant given the vast literature on communities and diversity, but few have taken a settler colonial analytical approach to the debate.