College Students’ Negotiation of Privilege in a Community-Based Violence Prevention Project

Recent scholarship on service-learning has departed from examination of more traditional models and outcomes to explore how service-learning shapes students’ understanding of social change. This study builds on existing research to further interrogate the ways in which service-learning relates to power and privilege, specifically exploring how college students in a service-learning experience reflect on notions of privilege and how this informs their work with urban youth. Data was collected from 15 undergraduate student participants in a violence prevention program. Findings point to the potential that lies within change models of service-learning for students to reflect on the complex relationship among service-learning, power, and privilege, and to see themselves engaged in impactful, transformative, and sustainable service work

Power and Negotiation in a University/Community Partnership Serving Jewish Teen Girls

University/community partnerships involve collaborative work with great potential and risk. This work can allow for productive exchanges that improve the quality of programs and enable broader dissemination of innovative ideas and practices grounded in feminist and social justice ideals. However, institutional demands and individual commitments introduce complications. This paper examines the complex power dynamics that emerge from cross-institutional partnering and program delivery in the context of a feminist education and youth-led participatory action research program for Jewish teen girls. Specifically, we examine the previously under-studied topic of university/community collaboration in which the participating institutions are similarly situated in structures of power. We explore how power dynamics and the partners’ shared and differential strategic goals were negotiated within a context of distinct institutional mandates, with a focus on the pressures of time, funding, and developing youth participatory action research with relatively privileged youth. We discuss implications and strategies for navigating complex university/community engagements that enable balanced, long-term, and sustained partnerships in which mutual interests are served

Building Teacher Empathy and Culturally Responsive Practice Through Professional Development and Self-Reflection

Today’s teachers face growing demands and mandates to support every aspect of a student’s academic success, with additional expectations to support students’ social and emotional needs both inside and outside of the classroom. In the face of increasing student cultural, racial and linguistic diversity, the teaching pool remains relatively homogeneous, consisting largely of white, European-American educators. This disconnect between the lived experiences of teachers and their students makes it difficult for teachers to value and connect to a diverse student body. This qualitative study explores how a collaborative multi-tiered critical professional development model between a non-for-profit organization and a University, shaped educators’ thinking about teaching, their students, and their role as change agents. The model provides sustained pre- and in-service training in social justice, empathy-building, and culturally responsive pedagogy to help teachers support diverse student groups. We present findings regarding the impact of this program on teacher practice and the ways in which teachers repositioned themselves as reflective, empathic, culturally responsive and socially just educators