Transcript Complexities! Student Resistance Unheard Voices Institutionalizing and Sustaining Complexity #1: The underside of servicelearning: Student resistance.

Complexities!
Student Resistance
Unheard Voices
Institutionalizing and Sustaining
Complexity #1:
The underside of servicelearning: Student resistance
The underside of service-learning
The complexities that emerge when
undergraduate students engage with
ill-structured, complex social issues in
the community service settings
typically associated with servicelearning courses
The underside of service-learning
Some students just “don’t get it”
Cannot see the connections between their
service work and the course content
Embark upon their service insincerely: severe
consequences for service site and class
(Jones, 2002)
Positive outcomes of service-learning
“Transformative potential”
Ability to connect subject matter with “reallife” experience: experiential learning
Personal development, critical thinking,
sensitivity to diversity, and development of
citizenship
(Eyler and Giles, 1999; Jones, 2002)
…and the resistance emerges in
the intersections of negotiated student
identities,
encounters in the borderlands,
and intentionally provoked classroom
dialogue on privilege and power.
Recognizing Student Resistance: Three
Vignettes
Vignette One: Why Do We have to Talk about This? [Race]
Vignette Two: The Provocateur
Vignette Three: Blaming the Victim
Vignette Three: Blaming the Victim
One student demonstrated active resistance to “serving with others.” This
student did not have a problem with acknowledging his own sense of
privilege (especially in terms of his family’s economic situation), however,
this sense of privilege translated into a “blame-game” when this student
discussed the overall course and service experience.
This student wrote,
“My experience in this class and at (the HIV service organization) has had more ups than
downs. Never did I feel motivated to do anything during this course because most things
were shown in ways to be untrue in the real world…”
Vignette Three: Blaming the Victim
This student continued:
“ I wish this class would focus more on service and what really happens in the
real world and NOT try to make all people look like victims when in reality it is
mostly their own faults. When I am at POHC and I see a client, I know it was
their fault they have AIDS, and if for some reason the person has AIDS by
something not of their causing, they will be a very small percentage that is that
way.
If you choose a way to live, and the consequence causes you to be in a
position where you need to rely on a non-profit organization to survive, then
you must first realize it is your fault for that…This is what I have seen and I feel
that just because my views are different, and somewhat not entirely what you
want in this paper, I should be respected that I had the courage to write what I
truly felt, because I know some people did not.”
[Gilbride-Brown, 2004]
Student resistance from our community
partners’ perspectives
“The resistance experience that I remember when I was
providing direct supervision was one student who showed
up maybe twice during the entire quarter, but was
reporting to her T.A. that she had been coming as
scheduled. I was able to verify that this student was not
showing up as she had stated. This student then asked
me to tell the instructors that she had been showing up,
basically lie for her, and I would not do that. Realizing
that she would not pass the class, she started showing up
more regularly, but she was going through the motions at
that point and clearly became distant towards me after
that.”
Student resistance from our community
partners’ perspectives
Some of our partners reported experiencing
resistance in the following behaviors:
Students not showing up for their scheduled
hours
Wanting to change their days/hours scheduled
Using cell phones
Not self-motivated, always needing to be
directed
Complexity #2: Missing Voices
Context of Study
• Service-learning literature speaks of
transformative potential and significant
positive outcomes for students.
• Students are treated as race and class-neutral
subjects.
• Students of color are underrepresented in
both:
 College student outcome research in servicelearning.
 K-16 school-based service-learning participation
rates.
Context of Study
• Race in service-learning literature is largely
treated as:
characteristic of community
topic necessary to discuss or integrate into
classroom
• K-12 data suggests
Positive growth in cognitive, interpersonal, and
civic development
• Higher Education data suggests
 Positive growth in cognitive, interpersonal, civic
development as well as persistence/self-efficacy.
Purpose of Study
 Address two significant gaps in the servicelearning literature
o Focus squarely on the experiences of college
students of color participating in a servicelearning experience “within community.”
o Apply a critical race framework to these
students’ experiences and to service-learning
 Interrogate normative service-learning
narrative in order to suggest pathways to
more inclusive and socially just research and
practice
Ubuntu’s Impact
Decrease
 in gang activity
 in unsafe sex practices
Increase
 in aspiration to and knowledge of college
 in retention
 in adopting the responsibilities of a role
model or mentor
External Stakeholder Findings
High school students
 Academic Achievement )(Quantitative)
 College Aspiration (Qualitative)
 Risky Behavior (Qualitative)
 Self-Confidence/Resiliency (Qualitative)
Qualitative finding across high school and college
students
 Increased Retention/Reason to stay in school
College Student Retention
Jen: So you feel like it was one of the reasons you
stayed?
Student: Yep, one of the reasons I stayed. I
wouldn’t want the kids to be like “I like (college
student)” and then all the sudden I am gone and
then have to tell them I am gone. That would be
messed up and I wouldn’t like it if I was a little
kid.
College Student Retention
When asked to think about college student’s connection
with students and what was keeping him in school he
offered the following:
Ability – we all have it. There is more to us (AfricanAmerican students) than what test show. We can do
more than what school claims we can do.
“Emergent Themes” Findings
• Service as racialized construct
• Service-learning as critically important
in predominantly white institutional
context
“Service” as Racialized Construct
College students viewed “service” as a
racialized construct typified as a
“white do-gooder” phenomenon.
Did not describe their involvement as “service”
 Simply helping out where they could
 Saw it as being involved within own
community and identified through similar life
experiences
“Service” as Racialized Construct
Jen: What I hear you talking about… people with excess resources want to do
something so they don’t feel bad. When you do it, it is not about who has
what. It is about being there for the person. Is that what I hear you say?
Student: Yea
Jen: Does race get involved in that at all?
Student: Yes.
Jen: Sometime it is characterized as this “white do-gooder”.. is that close…. I
don’t want to put words in your mouth.
Student: Yea, I don’t want to say that myself, but yea. They are
the champions who come to everyone else’s rescue.
Service-Learning in Predominantly
White Context
Space as a release and time to rejuvenate
 Able to come and speak first language
 Students in the room have some idea about
pressures
 Connection with something beyond their daily
environment
This stands in sharp contrast to the high school students’
description of the environment
Service-Learning in Predominantly
White Context
Jen: Has the makeup of the class mattered to you?
Student: When I am in the class I am a little more relaxed than
other classes because that is what I am used to and I still
haven’t adjusted to the way (the college) is, so when I am in
there I feel like I can be myself a little more.
Jen: Less to prove?
Student: Definitely
Jen: What kinds of things do people say?
Student: Not really saying anything directed towards me or
black people period, but sometimes white people are a little…..
about some things they are under educated.
Service-Learning in Predominantly
White Context
Jen: Why do you sit in the front and not the back?
Student: Because they expect me to sit in the back so I’m sitting
in the front…they think I just don’t want to be there to learn any
thing so I’ll sit in the back and fall asleep.
Jen: Do you think it has to do with the fact that you are a black male?
Student: Yea, I shouldn’t be here like the rest of us.
Jen: So you enter the mentoring class, largely white. Has it mattered to you?
How do you feel in the class?
Student: I feel alright… a little bit more open, cause I know
most of the stuff they’re going through I went through or could
have gone through. I can relate to them.
Critical Analysis Findings
•“Duress” vs. “Achievement” Discourse
–Discourse as statements in their social contexts that contribute to the
ways the context is understood, experienced, and imagined.
•Disconnect with Freirean Conscientisization
“Conscientisization”
–“I think consciousness is generated through the social practices in
which we participate.”
–“Reflection and action upon the world in order to change the world”
Discourse of Duress
College students participated in a discourse best
characterized as a discourse of distress.
Approach to Mentoring:
 4 out of 5 talked about never having any mentors that
mattered
 Felt an need to shield high school students from the bad
stuff
 Afraid of failing
 Complications due to family circumstances
Discourse of Duress
Approach to Mentoring
“Life isn’t any better because of college.”
“I don’t want to put my business on them.”
“College doesn’t think these kids should even be there.”
 “How can you mentor when you have so many problems?
Discourse of Duress
Classroom Behavior
 Researcher observations: college students as
disengaged, was I seeing resistance to the opportunity?
 “Texting”
 Working on computer
 Not responding to instructions to greet mentees or to
lead discussions
 Irregular attendance or coming/going during sessions
Achievement Discourse
High school students participated and constructed in a discourse best
characterized by an achievement discourse that also permeated their
approaches to mentoring and behavior in the classroom.
Mentoring Behavior
Important to share in order to warn students about taking
middle school seriously
Enjoyed the connections made with the middle school
students
Quick to get middle school students on track without any
cajoling
Drew links between their ability to survive their
circumstances and the service-learning course and opportunity
Achievement Discourse
Classroom Behavior
Trying out different concepts presented by instructor
and seeing connections to what they might know
Drawing connections between course content,
classroom discussion, and Robert Frost
Sharing personal stories because maybe it could help
someone else
No assumption of college students having more capacity
But there is a disconnect…
• College students could see the systemic pressures shaping
paths/ choices and were trying to look up while being
overwhelmed by what they were seeing
• Lack of awareness of what to do
• Watching words and unsure of the right time to speak
 When time to speak became clear- they simply did not
know what to say
 Could not make the connection between something
larger
But there is a disconnect…
•High school students’ circumstances were full of
barriers that were about far more than personal
choices and consequences.
•High school students had a innocence about them
regarding the systemic pressures.
They had bought into to an
individualistic, meritocratic discourse.
Complexity #3: Sustaining
High-Quality Service-Learning
Five Domains of High Quality
Sustainable Service-Learning
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Leadership and Vision
Curriculum and Assessment
Professional Development
Partnership and Community
Continuous Improvement
From Learning that Lasts (2005), ECS.org