Towards an ethical ecology of international service learning

International Service-Learning (ISL) is a pedagogical activity that seeks to blend student learning with community engagement overseas and the development of a more just society. ISL programmes have grown as educational institutions and non-governmental organisations have sought to achieve the goal of developing ‘global citizens’. However, Service Learning (SL) in general and International Service-Learning (ISL) in particular remain deeply under theorised. These educational initiatives provide policy makers with a practical response to their quest for a ‘Big Society’and present alluring pedagogical approaches for Universities as they react to reforms in Higher Education and seek to enhance both the student learning experience and graduate employability. After outlining the development of ISL in policy and practice, this paper draws on the rich tradition of ISL at one British university to argue that ISL is a form of engagement that has the potential to be ethical in character although we identify a number of factors that militate against this. Our contention is that ISL which promotes rationaland instrumental learning represents a deficit model and we therefore conceptualise ISL here as a transformative learning experience that evinces distinctly aesthetic and even spiritual dimensions. Upon this theoretical groundwork we lay the foundations for conceptualizing ISL in ways that ensure its ethical integrity

Becoming Other-wise: Transforming International Service-Learning Through Nurturing Cosmopolitanism

This article explores the potential of pedagogical approaches such as International Service-Learning (ISL) to cultivate a cosmopolitan orientation. Founded upon the premise that conceptualisations of transformative learning must be expanded upon to account for the interaction and balance between epistemological and ontological aspects of learning, it seeks to illuminate the barriers that inhibit the transformative nature of such experiences. A group of conditions, processes, and resultant dispositions for cosmopolitan learning are identified as being particularly useful for interpreting the ongoing experience of ISL for 27 students across a range of locations. This framework is exemplified here to develop an understanding of cosmopolitan learning as a transformative process of becoming other-wise: A form of engagement that is fundamentally holistic and relational with a distinct moral dimension. Although ISL has the potential to nurture cosmopolitanism, evidence is presented of a number of factors that tend to militate against this