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The dominant ideology driving the current educational reform movement positions adolescents as deficient in basic literacy skills. To address this deficiency, the trend has been to implement high-stakes standardized literacy tests and increase accountability to schools for developing basic literacy skills. Opposing this Discourse of "deficient youth," literacy researchers have moved to adolescents' cultural spheres of life beyond school to discover that traditional structures for teaching literacy appear to have resulted in a growing dissonance between literacies that take place within schools and those employed by youth in their personal worlds.This research was conducted to explore how adolescents constructed and represented themselves through "literate youth" Discourses within a service-learning community of learners, in order to understand the potential ways a service-learning instructional approach builds from adolescents' personal literacies to engage youth in litera cy practices in school contexts. Framed by the convergence of sociocultural theory, Discourse theory, and a multiple worlds model of adolescence and a critical ethnographic multiple case study design, this study examined the literate lives of 11 urban middle school students engaged in an environmental service-learning club. The multiple sources of data collected across various contexts during the course of this year-long study included: (1) ethnographic field notes; (2) home/family interviews; (3) visual data (video, photographs); (4) student interviews and focus groups; and (5) teacher interviews. Analysis of the data was conducted by combining Critical Discourse Analysis and event mapping to account for both the observable literacy practices and the driving ideological motivation for enacting these practices. The findings demonstrate that the this service-learning community represented a Third Space where personal and academic literate Discourses worked together to negotiate new know ledge, new Discourses, and new forms of literacy. These Third Space literate Discourses were constructed through a process of negotiation between three elements of the literate events: power, practices, and positions. By mapping levels of engagement with the various outcomes of these negotiations a Service-Learning Model of Engagement was constructed. This model serves to challenge previous notions of literacy engagement by emphasizing the interaction of various dimensions of engagement: voice, relevance, and knowledge. As a starting point from which to further theory on how service-learning as a pedagogy may support literacy learning for adolescents, this study provides evidence that service-learning contexts may serve as alternative spaces to engage students in using literacy in school settings, if these three dimensions are considered. Similarly, this study also suggests that service-learning contexts can serve as spaces where students can learn new literate Discourse with and from each other.

Institutions of higher learning have contributed to their communities for many years. Universities were founded on the strong principles of service and have continued to embrace that commitment. Athletics Departments at the Division I level are required by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to develop community service programs for student-athletes to give back to the community while in college.The purpose of this study was to determine (1) what motivates student-athletes to participate in community service in college, (2) what values are associated with student-athletes, and (3) what is the leadership role of the Athletics Department in the student-athletes' willingness to participate in community service.Six motivation factors were identified during the analysis of the data: motivation by asking, motivation by social responsibility, motivation by being required, motivation to volunteer with intrinsic reward, motivation for career experience, and motivation through participation in a group/organization. These motivation factors were used as dependent variables and statistically significant relationships occurred when comparing socio-economic status, number of years of church service, and participation in co-curricular service.Furthermore, three value factors were identified: value of helping others, value of personal status, and values of family and friends. The value factors were used as independent variables and statistically significant relations occurred when comparing gender, father and mother volunteering, socio-economic status, number of years of church service, mandated service prior to college, service participation in college, extra-curricular service in college, co-curricular service in college and Dean mandated service in college.In addition, the role of the Athletics Departments was compared to other community service opportunities, for example, service-learning, co-curricular service, extra-curricular service, and mandated service. The Chalk Community Service Model (2007) was also used to illustrate various types of community service and to define such service clearly.Student-athletes and staff members were interviewed and several themes were identified such as the motivation to help others, the student-athletes' value of personal status, the Athletics Department's influence on their community service participation, mandatory community service, being a role model, and thanking the community were all statements made during interviews.

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Thesis (M.Ed. (Research)) -- Australian Catholic University, 2006. / Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education (Research). Bibliography: p. 115-120. Also available in an electronic format via the internet.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 109-115).

Thesis--Catholic University of America. / Issued also on Microcards in 1949. Bibliographical footnotes and index.

Thesis--Catholic University of America. / Issued also on Microcards in 1949. Bibliographical footnotes and index.