Community Based Learning (CBL) is a pedagogy that h as been fast tracked by the South African government as a means to make universities more relevant to local communities and assist with development initiatives sorely need ed across the country. The approach is also gaining popularity in its own right in institu tions of higher education in South Africa. But the issues of entering and working with communities are complex, and become even more complex when the students placed in local communities are international students. The purpose of this study was to explore the CBL programme of the School for International Training (SIT) in Wentworth, Durban and to identify the benefits and challenges to the community from the perspective of the community. A qualitative, descriptive design was used to garner rich informat ion of the perceptions and experiences of community members involved in the CBL programme. The study employed purposive, convenience sampling to select community members wh o have been involved as community workers or homestay families so as to ‘illuminate’ the research question. Personal interviews and focus groups were conducted with these community members. Content analysis was done on the data generated and to ensure credibility, data triangulation was done using a field journal and st udent reflection papers from selected semesters of the CBL programme. The overall findings indicate that the Community Ba sed Organizations (CBOs) and the homestay families did benefit from the programme. T he organizations did not want the ‘help’ of the students, and found their dwelling on service as patronizing. The community appreciated its dual roles of being teachers and le arners: with organizations in particular having their experience and knowledge affirmed as t eachers of Community Development (CD). The community believed that students could be strong role models for local youth. The presence of the students within the community a lso led to an increased interest within the community of Coloured history, culture and iden tity. In terms of CBL the presence of the students led to an increase in volunteerism amo ngst homestay families and other families wanting to host students in the future. The programme also led to a substantive, if brief, increase in the goodwill between the often feuding community organizations of Wentworth. Finally, there was also lingering hope t hat the students and SIT as an institution would deliver better prospects for families and organizations such as funding, building networks and lasting personal relationship s. The community also noted costs to the interactions, mainly in the form of inappropriate behaviour of some students, both in homestays and within the community in general. These included ethnocentric behaviour as well as the use of drugs and alcohol. These were cited as negatively affecting the impressionable youth of Wentworth. The study concludes that benefits do accrue to the community, but the relationships within the programme need to be nurtured and the whole initiative viewed as a process. International CBL programmes can be fraught with intercultural concerns and misunderstandings and thus take significant time to nurture must be approached with great caution. Attention must be paid to power differenti als that may exist, and visiting universities must be honest with communities in the ir needs and what they are prepared to give. These programmes, if not managed properly, have the potential to become extractive and follow patterns set by failed development projects. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

This study is intended as a contribution to the debate and quality assurance activity which in South Africa is following the South African Qualifications Authority's recommendations that better quality co-operative education work experience be provided for higher education students. This study focuses on the perceptions and experiences of a cohort of Durban Institute of Technology students involved in co-operative education work programmes. Through a process of random sampling twenty students each were selected from the faculties of Arts, Commerce, Engineering Science & Built Environment and Health Sciences. The students comprised both male and female students in various years of study. Questionnaires articulating the research enquiry as well as the purpose of the study and questions to be answered for the study were mailed individually to each selected student. Forty six of the total selected sample of students returned completed questionnaires. The instrument comprised open and closed ended questions. With the aid of a statistical database programme the data was analysed. Findings of the study indicated that students' perceptions and experiences vary from positive to negative. Issues of racial discrimination, inadequate or no salaries and lack of support from mentors and lecturers emerged as concerns articulated by many students. On the contrary students perceived themselves as the greatest beneficiaries of the work programmes. Students also noted the relevance and value of the work programmes in developing the students' and preparing them for the workplace. The recommendations for co-operative education practitioners, in terms of listening to the voices of the students' in this study, is invaluable. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Durban-Westville, 2004.

As the civic role of higher education attracts renewed critical attention, the idea of engagement has come to the fore. Civic engagement, as espoused in many institutional missions, encompasses a diversity of goals, strategies and activities. Latterly, these have included particular approaches to teaching and learning. This research examines the process of embedding a civic engagement dimension within the higher education curriculum in Ireland. I use the term ‘pedagogy for civic engagement’as a generic term for a range of academic practices –variously referred to as ‘service learning’or ‘community based learning’–which share an explicit civic focus. Academic practice serves as the central focus with attention to pertinent aspects of the prevailing context. Using a multi-site case study conducted in the spirit of naturalistic enquiry, I examine four cases of this curriculum innovation, drawn from the university and institute of technology sectors in Ireland, with unstructured interviews and documents as the main sources of data. I interrogate the underpinning rationale for ‘pedagogy for civic engagement’–as gleaned from the literature, the policy context and the case studies –exploring implicit conceptions in relation to knowledge, curriculum, civil society, community and the purpose of higher education. The study draws its empirical data from those responsible for implementing this pedagogy –the ‘embedders’–and a range of other actors. Interviews were carried out with academic staff, project directors, educational developers, academic managers and leaders. Key actors from the national policy context and from the international field of civic engagement also participated in the study. Four orientations to civic engagement are identified, revealing the multifaceted rationale. I explore the process of operationalising the pedagogy and the factors impacting on academics’capacity and willingness to embed it. While the study does not directly examine the experience of students and community partners their role within the process, as perceived by academic staff and others, is problematised. The implications of the putative unresolved epistemology of this pedagogy are explored in light of how participants conceive of and practice it. Academics’ambivalence about the place of values in higher education emerges as a theme and the issue of agency recurs. I explore how the pedagogy may be conceived of in terms of the teaching, research and service roles of academics and consider how it may be positioned within an institution. Opportunities for alignment are identified at a number of levels from constructive alignment within the curriculum to alignment with national strategic priorities. I explore the unrealised potential of the Irish National Framework of Qualifications –specifically the ‘insight’dimension –as a means of enabling and legitimising the pedagogy, in light of the prominence afforded to the principle of subsidiarity in Irish higher education policy. The localised way in which these practices have been adopted and adapted underlines the significance of context and culture. ‘Pedagogy for civic engagement’as a concept and as a practice challenges a range of assumptions and traditional practices, raising fundamental questions regarding the role and purpose of higher education –and not just in contemporary Ireland.

This dissertation addresses the questions: How do activists sustain hope while increasingly aware of social complexity? How is agentive hope related to experiences of systemic power relations, including class, race, and gender? In a political climate increasingly circumscribed by neoliberal and neoconservative policies and rhetoric, the question of how scholars and teachers, both formal and informal, can support hopeful, agentive, social democratic citizens becomes critical. Employing a mixed genre format, based in an ethnographic position informed by Virginia Dominguez's “politics of love and rescue” and Hirokazu Miyazaki's "method of hope," I examine hope and its relationship to diversity and citizenship through analysis of in-depth field research conducted in undergraduate citizenship education courses. Through both traditional anthropological analysis and a full-length, ethnographically inspired novel, I explore activists' motivation, life stories, and political values, asking how their ability to sustain hope for the short term and the long term articulates with their lived experiences of systemic power relations and their visions of citizenship. Key factors in sustaining a long-term orientation toward hope include perspective-taking ("the wide angle lens"), loving relationships, and doing and reflecting on direct action, especially across social boundaries. I conclude that reflective, relational, action-focused pedagogies can effectively support diverse groups of hopeful, agentive citizens committed to progressive visions of social justice.

Durch Service Learning, das aktuell an deutschen Hochschulen an Bekanntheit und Verbreitung gewinnt, soll soziales Lernen und gesellschaftliches Engagement in Studium und Lehre verankert werden. Nach einem kurzen Überblick zur Idee und Entstehungsgeschichte dieses Ansatzes wird eine neue Initiative der Universität Augsburg vorgestellt, durch die das Engagement von Studierenden in sozialen Einrichtungen im Umfeld der Universität gefördert wird. Der Beitrag arbeitet im Hinblick auf dieses Projekt heraus, wie diese Initiative an zahlreiche Einzelprojekte anknüpft und diese in eine gesamtuniversitäre Strategie einbindet. Digitale Medien spielen dabei eine zentrale Rolle bei der Kommunikation der Projektidee und bei der Vernetzung der heterogenen Beteiligtengruppen.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Montana, 2007. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Aug. 14, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 118-131).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 200-207).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, 1978. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 198-199).

Thesis (M.I.T.)--The Evergreen State College, 2009. / Title from title screen (viewed 7/30/2009). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-130).