Broader social issues that affect students’ lives manifest in the classroom and the current neo-liberal reform structures in education (e.g., the accountability movement combined with punitive discipline measures and structural classism/racism) fail to acknowledge the impact of these issues on student identity within school and community. While this era of standardized testing has brought about anti-democratic realities in schools of all sorts, it is also the case that schools that pass tests often enjoy a more liberatory climate while schools struggling to meet testing requirements are more likely to possess oppressive qualities. Not coincidentally, the more oppressive schools are often populated by poor kids, kids of color, and very often in urban schools, poor kids of color. Deficit thinking runs rampant in urban schools and marginalized communities – student experiences perpetuate oppressive social hierarchies and students are pushed to think that they can’t, won’t, and aren’t capable. Critical service learning, and more specifically photovoice as a form of critical service learning, has promise to provide a different kind of educational experience. This project is an exploratory qualitative study using photovoice, photo elicitation, and critical thematic analysis to determine what narratives students construct while participating in photovoice as a form of critical service learning. This study posits a way to move from deficits to possibilities by providing a space for traditionally marginalized youth to legitimize their sense of place, identity, and connection to their community while empowering them to be advocates for social change. Students served as action researchers, constructing counter narratives through an adaptation of photovoice documentation, addressing social inequities by highlighting strengths and assets in their own schools and community. In addition to using photovoice as a methodology, this study also addressed how photovoice as critical service learning pedagogy can serve to create discursive spaces for those counter-narratives to circulate and to be heard. This project addressed the need for a critical service learning approach in education that empowers students to become agents of change, using their own stories and cultural/social capital to disrupt deficit perspectives while promoting possibility perspectives – moving us closer to a more democratic public education.

Medical schools around the country are utilizing service-learning as a method of promoting cultural humility among future physicians and strengthening partnerships between academic institutions and their surrounding communities. Critical service-learning (CSL) is an approach which emphasizes the need to address the power dynamics inherent to service through guided critical self-reflection for student learners, and centers autonomy and self-determination for community stakeholders. STEM Stars is an afterschool STEM enrichment program at a community center in North Philadelphia which was piloted in the 2019-2020 academic year. It was created with a trauma-informed design to address the social and emotional needs of K-6 students at the community center and to introduce trauma-informed practices to staff at the center. STEM Stars also served as a more intensive CSL opportunity for medical student volunteers and a model for future service-learning programs at the medical school. This thesis is a gap analysis of STEM Stars: it will provide a background of the program, review the pilot year, assess its successes and shortcomings, and propose changes to be made in the coming years. / Urban Bioethics

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Addressing childhood trauma is increasingly being recognized as a priority in public health, healthcare and health policy sectors. As evidence mounts that the effects of trauma are both graded and dose responsive, stakeholders in healthcare are turning more attention to preventing and addressing experiences of trauma in childhood, commonly referred to as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Trauma Informed Care (TIC), is a promising clinical approach attuned to the specific needs of traumatized patients that is still in its infancy with regards to training and evaluation of practitioner skills. Although physicians of all specialties will encounter patients who have experienced trauma, few undergraduate medical education curriculums provide formal training in TIC. Additionally, the approach to TIC in clinical settings has largely been biomedical and individual, with a focus on screening and treatment. This model ignores the role that communities play in both propagating trauma and generating resiliency. Urban academic medical centers, often geographically located in highly traumatized communities, must take a specific interest in developing TIC research, theory and praxis that includes and empowers communities. Service learning, a form of experiential education that cultivates self-awareness in students while simultaneously meeting community objectives, is a pedagogy that aligns with a community driven TIC framework. This thesis outlines the implementation of a community driven, bi-directional TIC learning model designed to serve the needs of medical students and low income K-8th grade students living in the geographic catchment of an urban, academic medical center. / Urban Bioethics

The Vermont Youth Conservation Corps (VYCC) is an organization that utilizes outdoor, project-based learning and critical service learning techniques to support young people in completing large-scale conservation and farming projects statewide. This study aimed to examine the perceived mental health effects of participating in the VYCC, the strategies in the organization that may have led to those changes, and feasible ways for educators to bring those methods into the post-pandemic classroom. Now is an important time to study youth organizations that may have already been having a positive effect on youth mental health, especially because of the negative effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on young people’s mental health. A phenomenological qualitative research study was used to examine the perceived mental health effects of the VYCC, the aspects of the organization that led to those changes, and the feasibility of bringing these strategies into the classroom setting. This researcher interviewed five first-time participants in the VYCC throughout their summer experiences, focusing on their perceived mental health and whether they reported changes throughout the summer, as well as the programming that could have led to those changes. This researcher interviewed five recent alumni of the VYCC who currently or recently worked with young people about the lessons or strategies that they took from their VYCC experience into their current or recent work with young people. The study revealed the following results in terms of the VYCC’s perceived effects on mental health, what may have led to those changes, and feasible strategies for the post-pandemic classroom: ● Most VYCC participants in this study reported an increase in confidence and self-efficacy, particularly because of the project-based nature of the work. ● Participants reported decreases in perceived anxiety from the project-based, outdoor nature of the work and the supportive relationships with crew members. ● The nature of the work in the VYCC, in terms of its impact on local communities and tangible results led to increased feelings of joy, pride, satisfaction, and accomplishment. ● Working with people of varying abilities led to both increased stress and feelings of connectedness and empathy for others. ● Negative feedback, breakdowns in communication, and pressure to lead those with varying needs and accomplish projects without feeling properly supported led to feelings of frustration, stress, burnout, and increased anxiety. ● Participants in this study examined their own strengths, personalities, and self-image as a result of the reflective nature of the program. The following results relate to the feasibility of bringing strategies or lessons from the VYCC into the classroom: ● The VYCC inspired participants to teach their own students that the process of learning was just as important as the end product, and that mistakes were opportunities for growth in the learning process. ● The VYCC instilled a strengths-based perspective in alumni participants, and they found that maintaining that perspective in the classroom was beneficial to their students. ● The VYCC crew experience helped participants to view others as holistic beings, and inspired them to get to know their students on a personal level in order to make connections and to build a culture of belonging in their classrooms. ● Alumni participants learned that not every style of communication works well with every student; it is important to try various communication styles with students who learn differently. ● The alumni reported that it was important for teachers to instill in their students a sense of joy of discovery and praise curiosity, encouraging them to celebrate when they learn something new or see something in a different way. ● Alumni participants found that the VYCC experience helped them to learn they should prioritize guiding students in discovering their passions and exploring unique pathways to achieving their own definitions of success. The findings in this study were consistent with the literature on project-based learning, outdoor education, and critical service learning’s positive effects on intrinsic motivation, student engagement, and deeper learning (Einfeld et al., 2008; Grant, 2002; James & Williams, 2017; Kokatsaki et al., 2016; Krsmanovic, 2021; Mackenzie et al., 2017; Myers-Lipton, 1998; Smith & Walsh, 2019). The findings in this study added to the limited literature on the Youth Conservation Corps experience, shining light on its perceived effects on the participants in this study’s mental health (Creed et al., 1996; Dickerson, 1977; Driver & Johnson, 1984; Hamilton & Stewart, 1978; Sayegh et al., 2019). The study indicated the positive effects that project-based learning (PBL) can have on perceived anxiety and self-efficacy of participants in this study, which adds to the research on the mental health effects of PBL (Erdem, 2012; Miguel & Carney, 2022; Samsudin et al., 2020; Shin, 2018). This research also uncovered multiple strategies and lessons from the VYCC model that have already been successfully used in the classroom setting.

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