Service-learning as a higher education pedagogy for advancing citizenship, conscientization and civic agency: A capability informed view

Universities are criticised for overemphasising instrumental values. Instrumental values are important but universities risks undermining cultivation of humanity, critical consciousness and civic agency. Service-learning (SL) is practice that moves teaching and learning beyond the focus on technical skills and instrumental outcomes. Nonetheless, little is known about this role of SL in African and particularly South Africa context. Using a capability approach (CA) as developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, the article explores the contribution of SL in fostering students’ capabilities for citizenship, conscientization and civic agency. The findings indicate that through SL processes and activities, students develop citizenship capabilities of affiliation and narrative imagination, informed vision, social and collective struggle, and local citizenship but often not in the way the university intended. The paper contributes to the understanding of how SL can expand the conception of teaching and learning and fosters critical social values in the global South context

Questioning private good driven university-community engagement : a Tanzanian case study

This study examined the motives underpinning involvement in community engagement by academics. The broader context of the study is the idea of universities as actors for and contributors to the public good, especially through community engagement. Engaging with communities is associated with the historical social mandate of universities, and is generally framed as a way through which universities participate in addressing pressing social, economic, and moral challenges that confront communities and society at large. However, as illustrated in this study, university-community engagement is also being framed in ways which, though not necessarily antithetical to the pursuit of the public good, treat it as an occasional, peripheral, ‘add on’ activity, geared towards advancing the private interests and benefits of academics. The study illustrates this framing and practice using a case study of community engagement in an African university. The study highlights transactional forms of community engagement, which are at odds with its transformative potential with respect to the public good. We argue that for university-community engagement to become an effective mechanism for advancing the public good, there is a need for universities, and individual academics, to rethink the undergirding principles and values of community engagement and put in place the requisite institutional support to drive community engagement as an institutionalised practice, towards genuine engagement with communities.http://link.springer.com/journal/107342022-01-15hj2021Education Management and Policy Studie

The scholarship of university-community engagement : interrogating Boyer's model

Albeit with different conceptualisations, the engagement between universities and external communi- ties continues to gain significant currency. While the emphasis has been on more socio-economic relevance in a period of significant financial constraints and a changing clientele, a more significant area of engagement has been on promoting the scholarship of engagement towards regional/local development. The praxis and outcomes of community engagement continues to be surrounded by strong debate on issue such as its impact on the core functions of the university, teaching and research. This article sheds light on the community engagement practices from a case-study university in Africa. Using Ernest Boyer’s proposed scholarship of engagement model as a framework, findings provide evidence that, different contextual specificities affect the way university-community engagement practices evolve. The methodology involved an analysis of primary and secondary data collected through interviews with policy and academic staff. The article concludes with an argument that the success of university-community engagement in fostering social and economic development significantly relates to how much the practices of engagement is foregrounded in the universities’ core policy and practice. But also on how much academic scholarship draws on engagement activities. The challenge lies in ensuring this balance.Norwegian Research Development Agency, NORAD.http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev2017-07-31hb2016Education Management and Policy Studie