A CALL FOR A FRAMEWORK THAT DISRUPTS ANTI-BLACK RACISM: A Space for Integrating and Expanding Critical Service Learning in Higher Education

Educating for citizenship in the 21st century is based on developing responsible, participative, and committed citizens. Developing individuals who are working for the global common good has allowed the emergence of new practices and ways of supporting critically engaged thinkers, creating cohorts of educators who are moving away from the standard assumption that learning is solely shaped from a singular Western lens but instead developed by a participative global pedagogy combining knowledge, skills, attitudes, and actions. Western lens but instead developed by a participative global pedagogy combining knowledge, skills, attitudes, and actions. The rationale for providing a more global and inclusive approach to engagement lies in the type of students that typically engage in service-learning experiences and in the White normativity that lies behind the field of service learning. While a national service-learning dataset lacking demographic data does not exist, various studies suggest (see Bocci, 2015) that the typical student profile of a millennial White is attending a four-year college. According to Butin (2015), service learning represents the “whitest of the white” which is further evidence of white normativity within the service-learning experience. According to Mitchell, Donahue, and Young-Law, 2012, service learning is predominantly White due to the considerable number of White faculty and students who use this platform to teach students within the context of underserved individuals who are primarily people of color.” (p. 612). By incorporating deliberate coursework and experiences that seek to diversify students’ views and knowledge, service learning can address the normatively White nature of the learning experience.