Critically Engaged Civic Learning: A Comprehensive Restructuring of Service-Learning Approaches

Abstract

This article contributes to a long-standing conversation about the implementation of service-learning by proposing an updated revision for the 21st century: critically engaged civic learning (CECL). The term service-learning is problematic as it invokes inequitable power dynamics that inherently privilege one group over another, with more privileged groups providing "service" to marginalized groups (Bortolin, 2011). CECL shifts service-learning from a student-centered pedagogy to an equity-based framework that views all constituent stakeholders as invested partners in the co-design, implementation, and evaluation of CECL initiatives and is founded on redistributed power and authority to promote civic learning and social change. CECL is structured by six guiding principles: social justice, power dynamics, community, civic learning objectives, reflexivity, and sustainability. Consequently, we argue that CECL can be seen across four overar-ching outcomes-increased self-awareness, self-efficacy, and self-empowerment; increased awareness of civic agency; better understanding of community; and workforce preparation-which can be assessed through the