What We Know about Service Learning

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1996 28: 208Education and Urban SocietyRobert Shumer and Brad Belbas

What We Know about Service Learning

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What We Know about Service LearningRobert Shumer and Brad Belbas

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WHAT WE KNOWABOUT SERVICE LEARNING

ROBERT SHUMERBRAD BELBASNational Service-Learning Clearinghouse

What is service learning and what do we know about it? These questionsposed a dilemma for the Commission on National and Community Servicein the early 1990s (National and Community Service Act, 1990) when it wascharged by Congress to develop and promote service-learning programsacross the country. In response to that challenge, a request for a proposal wasissued to develop a national clearinghouse that would answer these questionsand develop a new, centralized system to collect information about servicelearning and then use it to help students, teachers, community members,governmental agencies, and the public to implement high-quality programs.

ESTABLISHING A NATIONAL CLEARINGHOUSEFOR SERVICE LEARNING

In response to the request, the National Youth Leadership Council and theUniversity of Minnesota Department of Vocational and Technical Educationproposed a cooperative system that connected community-based organiza-tions with major universities. The original design created a system both tocollect information about service learning and to disseminate it to interestedparties through applications of that knowledge. The 15 organizations thatformed the first cooperative, including the Universities of Minnesota, Mas-sachusetts, Clemson, and Stanford, and community organizations such as theConstitutional Rights Foundation (Los Angeles, CA), the Community-ServiceLearning Center (Springfield, MA), the Pennsylvania Institute for Environ-mental and Community Service-Learning (Philadelphia, PA), Project ServiceLeadership (Vancouver, WA), the Arkansas Departments of Education andVolunteerism (Little Rock, AK), the East Bay Conservation Corps (Oakland,

EDUCATION AND URBAN sociEry, Vol. 28 No. 2, February 1996 208-2231996 Sage Publications, Inc.

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Shumer, Bans I WHAT WE KNOW 2 0 9

CA), the National Indian Youth Leadership Project (Gallop, NM), the Michi-gan K-12 Service-Learning Center (Fast Lansing, MI), and the Close UpFoundation (Alexandria, VA), all joined forces to pool information, re-sources, and experience to create a national structure for the service-learningmovement. Many other organizations were invited to participate, repre-senting interests of the volunteer and service communities.

Paralleling developments within the Corporation for National and Com-munity Service (later to be called the Corporation for National Service),which established a national infrastructure through state education agenciesand state systems, the cooperative operated from eight geographic regions,each responsible for coordinating activities for states assigned to the area.Linkages were established with state learn and serve coordinators. Regionalconferences and effective communication were highly encouraged.

Regional partners brought networks of expertise to the cooperative. EastBay Conservation Corps was connected to the conservation and service corpscommunity; Clemson was the lead agency in the national dropout preventionnetwork; Close Up and Constitutional Rights Foundation were leaders in theK-12 world of civics and social studies education; the Arkansas Division ofVolunteerism housed the largest library on volunteer centers and volunteer-ism; and the Community-Service Learning Center, Project Service Leader-ship, and the National Youth Leadership Council all were leaders in municipaland state initiatives for service learning. These networks, or interlockingwebs of information collection and dissemination, were a central factor increating a national information system.

The varied expertise, backgrounds, and foci of the partners mirrored thecomplexity of the field and the task of organizing and disseminating infor-mation. Service learning is not a monolith; it is many things to many people.The literature suggests, indeed, that service learning is both a philosophy anda methodology (Giles, Porter Honnet, & Migliore, 1991; Stanton, 1987, p. 7).Like an earlier movement in the 1970s involving use of the community foracademic, career development, and community service, people have usedcommunity-based programs for a variety of purposes, each based on the goalsand outcomes desired (Farrar, Cohen, & deSanctis, 1980) Similarly, researchon service learning suggests that it, too, is "complex and multifaceted," withmany forms of programs described by researchers and practitioners (Shumer,Berkas, & Murphy, 1993). The Shumer et al. (1993) Delphi study on servicelearning revealed that there were at least 11 forms of school-based servicelearning, and 15 forms of community-based systems. Thus understandingwhat service learning was and developing a unified knowledge base was notan easy feat.

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210 EDUCATION AND URBAN SOCIETY / February 1996

Besides the complexity of the concept, developing an information basewas hampered by the state of knowledge in education. Specifically, thechallenge was to create not an isolated information system but rather onecompatible with the existing educational world, namely the EducationalResource and Information Clearinghouse (ERIC) system. Thus knowledgedeveloped for the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse had to bematched with the ERIC subjects and categories. To accomplish this task, theclearinghouse hired a librarian/information specialist to develop the strategyand structure to make the systems interface. That process, although still beingdeveloped, is evolving as the issues of electronic databases and Internetconcerns are addressed. Currently, the data system contains information onmore than 900 programs and 900 articles, books, and other written and visualmedia. It is being catalogued and entered into a FoxPro data system thatallows the information to be accessed through a toll-free number (with humanoperator) or through the National Information Center (University of Minne-sota) Gopher on the Internet.

The collection of information is being directed by an information special-ist hired by the clearinghouse to be the liaison between the cooperativepartners—the Corporation for National Service and the service-learning fieldin general. The challenge for this job has been the scattered sources ofinformation, the reluctance on the part of practitioners to share informationwith a national system, and the general lack of practice on the part of programoperators to submit information to a central agency.

Progress is being made. The university partners in the clearinghouse areall responsible for collecting regional data and forwarding them to the centraldatabase at the University of Minnesota. The data they are collecting, onprograms, organizations, calendar events, peer consultants, and media mate-rials, is increasing substantially. Stanford has been responsible for gatheringinformation, partly through Youth Service California (a partner in the coop-erative during Years 2 and 3), on several hundred programs. Similarly, theUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst, has collected information on manyprograms, including those in Puerto Rico and the entire southern section ofthe country. Clemson, which has been a partner for purposes of coordinationand training, has recently been engaged in providing regional information aswell. They will be adding information about southern programs and peopleto the database.

Thus a national information system is now in place to address the ques-tions concerning what we know about service learning. As new initiatives,such as Learn and Serve America, add people and programs to the field, theinitial answer to the question will continue to grow and expand—we know




Shmner, Baas/WHAT WE KNOW 2 1 1

more each day. Continued cooperation from the field, and continued willing-ness to use a central information system to develop and expand the knowledgebase, will make service learning a legitimate subject area, one able to standalongside the traditional areas of focus found in schools of education and ineducational and volunteer literature.

WHAT WE KNOW FROM THE DATABASE

Having established a system for compiling data about Learn and Serveprograms, as well as about other initiatives around the country, analysis ofthe data reveals important information about the state of service learning in1995. The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse database has informa-tion on programs, organizations, people, calendar events, and literature/multimedia materials. The information is collected using standardized formsand the data entered via microcomputer, using FoxPro software. Once thedata is entered, information specialists perform queries and create reports tofill information requests. People access the information by calling a toll-freenumber and speaking with an information specialist or by telecommunicatingthrough the Internet using a Gopher server. Despite the current popularity ofthe Internet, a majority of those who access clearinghouse informationservices use the toll-free number.

The program information form has sections for contact information,program description, funding, history, participant information, beneficiaryinformation, program format, activities, benefits to service providers, andprogram subject focus. The program description section is a short narrative,and the rest of the survey uses check boxes or a fill-in-the-blank format. Manyof the terms in the subject focus category come from ERIC descriptorsassociated with service-learning literature; the remaining sections and termscorrespond with the program report forms from the former Commission onNational and Community Service. Practitioners, coordinators, and adminis-trators are frequently the people who complete the forms. On other occasions,National Service-Learning Clearinghouse staff have completed the formsusing existing program documentation from state grant-making agencies.

For the following analysis, information on activities, participant benefits,and primary subject focus was analyzed in two stages: (a) as a single groupcomprising all programs currently in the database and (b) as a comparison ofthose identifying themselves as either urban, suburban, or rural. Of the 938programs in the database at the time of this analysis, 566 identified them-selves in one of the three distinct settings (211 as urban, 170 as suburban, and





Education

Human Service

• C o m m u n i t yo • i m p r o v e m e n t

Conservation and▪ E n v .

Public Safetya)c

• Disaster Response

Other

10 20 30 40

Average Rank

figure 1: Average Rank for General Activity Categories (scale: 142)NOTE: The shorter the bar, the more times items in the category were selected.

185 as rural). The remaining programs identified either no setting (213) ormore than one (159), and were not included in the setting comparisons(Figures 1-3).

Acrwrrus

In the Activities section, respondents selected terms that described themajor program activities of the service providers. On the form, the 42activities were divided into seven general categories (Figure 1). After urban,suburban, and rural programs were separated, activities were counted andthen ranked from most selected (1) to least selected (42). The activities foreach setting (urban, suburban, rural) were assigned to their respective generalcategory, and the ranks within each category were averaged to create theaverage rank (Figure 1).

The 10 most frequently selected activities (using all 938 programs) arelisted in Table 1. Of the 938 respondents, each selected an average of 5.92activities. The 10 most commonly selected activities represent more than46% of the total number of items selected in this category of the database.


ci Urban• Ruralta Suburban



0

co

0

cD

cr)

a)

PsychosocialDevelopment

Participation-Action

CommunityImprovement

Educational Strategy

Skills Development

Vocational

Target Population

Program Type

Program Dev./Improvement

Academics

ParticipantDevelopment

VocationalEducation

BasicEducation

Life Skills

0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 4 0 4 5

I M : 1 1 = 1 1 : = 2 7 Z 1 1 1 1 M I C I Z :

Average Rank

Figure 2: Average Rank for General Subject Focus Categories (scale: 1-64)NOTE: The shorter the bar, the more times items in the category were selected.

0 2 4 6 8 1 0 1 2 1 4 1 6 1 8

Average Rank

Shumer, Belbas / WHAT WE KNOW 2 1 3

ip Urban•SuburbanEt Rural

Figure 3: Average Rank for General Participant Benefits Categories (scale: 1-23)NOTE: The shorter the bar, the more times items in the category were selected.


°Urban•Suburbanel Rural

Gener




Activity Type

MentoringCross-age tutoringAcademic instructionHospitals, nursing homes, hospicesSocial serviceNeighborhood improvementIntergenerationalPeer tutoringPeer mentoringFood bank, food drive, soup kitchen

TABLE 110 Most Frequently Selected Activities

Survey Total

PROGRAM SUBJECT FOCUS

BENEFITS FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS


General Activity Category

332 E d u c a t i o n324 E d u c a t i o n314 E d u c a t i o n258 H u m a n service249 H u m a n service246 C o m m u n i t y improvement225 E d u c a t i o n208 E d u c a t i o n204 E d u c a t i o n203 H u m a n service

Respondents to the program database form were asked to describe themajor subject foci of their program by selecting from 64 terms. Although theterms were not divided into general categories on the survey form, they wereanalyzed to identify commonly occurring themes. Ten were identified thatfor purposes of this analysis became 10 general subject focus categories(Figure 2).

Using the same method as with activities, urban, suburban, and rural datawere separated. Subject focus terms were counted, ranked from most selected(1) to least selected (64), and assigned to their respective general subject focuscategory; then, their ranks were averaged (Figure 2). When calculatingaverage ranks, terms that applied to more than one theme were used, in total,for each related general category. Of the 938 respondents, each selected anaverage of 15.39 subject focus terms. The 10 most commonly selected termsare found in Table 2.

For this section of the survey, respondents selected the terms that bestdescribed the major program benefits for those who provide service. On theform, the 23 benefit terms were divided into 4 general categories: basiceducation, vocational education, participant development, and life skills. An



10 Most Common Foci

Service learningCommunity serviceSelf-esteemStudent participationStudent developmentCommunity involvementSocial responsibilityStudent volunteersSchool-community programsSchool-community relationship

Shumer, Belbas /WHAT WE KNOW 2 1 5

TABLE 210 Most Frequently Selected Subject Focus Terms

Total G e n e r a l Subject Focus Category

481 E d u c a t i o n strategy432 C o m m u n i t y improvement420 Psychosocia l development406 Participation-action378 S k i l l developmentipsychosocia development368 C o m m u n i t y improvement339 Psychosocial development331 T a r g e t population327 P r o g r a m type316 C o m n m n i t y improvement

average rank for each general category was calculated using the sameprocedure as the activity and subject focus categories.

SUMMARY OF DATABASE FINDINGS

According to subject focus and participant benefit data, service learningis most commonly perceived as a methodology for enhancing the personalgrowth of the service providers, especially in areas of self-esteem and socialresponsibility.

Although the activity base for many programs was educational or instruc-tional (Figure 1), academic and subject content learning ranked low as botha benefit to service providers (Figure 3) and as a program subject focus(Figure 2), suggesting that service learning is perceived less commonly as ameans of enhancing academic learning. None of the "academics" generalsubject focus category terms (Figure 2) ranked in the top 10 (Table 2), andthe term academic achievement ranked 25th out of the 64 terms.

Urban, suburban, and rural programs were similar in most respects,especially regarding benefits to service providers; however, there wereseveral notable differences in the activities. Human services activities weremore common in urban and suburban settings than in rural ones. Conserva-tion and environmental activities were more common in rural and suburbansettings than in urban ones.

The activity and subject focus data suggest that urban programs aredistinguished from the others by their focus on target populations and





multicultural issues (Figure 2), their emphasis on educational activities(Figure 1), and, as with other program settings, their focus on personaldevelopment (Table 2). Urban programs reported up to a 42% greater focuson disadvantaged youth than did suburban and rural programs. Also, urbanprograms reported up to a 38% greater focus on high-risk students than didsuburban and rural programs. Urban respondents also reported up to 40%more literacy training activities than did suburban and rural programs andreported the highest percentage of education activities of the three settings(Figure 1).

This analysis helps us answer the original question, "What do we knowabout service learning?" It shows that there are some differences betweenurban, suburban, and rural programs (Figures 1-3), and that the primary focusis on mostly personal and interpersonal knowledge and least of all onacademic or subject matter learning (Figure 2, Table 2). Armed with thisknowledge, we can work constructively to make service learning a moreintegral part of schooling.

WHAT WE KNOW FROM RESEARCH

Review of research articles and books in the database suggest we know alot about service learning, and we know a great deal about what constitutesgood practice. Much of the best research in the field has been done onexperiential learning programs, on school-to-work transition efforts, and oncareer and vocational development programs. What follows is a synthesis ofthe past 20 years of work that highlights the body of available service-learning knowledge.

Studies on service activities have been done through both quantitative andqualitative methods. Quantitative reports tend to explain affects and effectsof service along certain dimensions of learning, whereas qualitative work hasfocused more on explaining how programs operate and what needs to be doneto make them effective. Research will be reported here in both areas.

Some quantitative studies report that service learning has had an impacton psychological, social, and academic development of youth. Studies doneon career education programs in the 1970s indicate that students in experi-entially based, career development programs made good academic progress(Owens & Owen, 1979; Spotts & Evenson, 1976). Others found that suchprograms were actually superior to classroom-based programs in areas ofacademic learning, career development, and development of personal respon-




Shtuner, Belbas / WHAT WE KNOW 2 1 7

sibility. Students made significantly greater gains than did comparable groups(Bucknam & Brand, 1983).

This observation was supported by a national study conducted by Conradand Hedin (1982) on various experiential/service-learning programs. Theystudied 30 experiential education programs, including adventure education,volunteer community service, career internships, and community study/political action. Interviews and case studies reinforced quantitative findingsthat students felt they learned more in experiential programs and that suchprograms were better than classroom programs alone in promoting feelingsof improved self-worth. Both quantitative and qualitative data supported thenotion that more effective programs tended to be longer in duration and moreintense (more than an hour per day). The authors also noted that programswith reflective seminars helped students to learn more than programs withoutsuch opportunities to process the community experiences.

Studies conducted in the 1970s on career education programs revealeda great deal about how students processed community-based settings.Experience-Based Career Education (EBCE) programs were the service-learning fad of the decade. These programs connected students with peopleand situations in the community to learn about careers and to learn aboutbasic, academic, and life skills. Many of the programs included service-learning activities, with students working in hospitals, schools, day-carecenters, and many social agencies. Four major research laboratories devel-oped model programs and disseminated them throughout the country.

Anthropological studies were conducted to learn how these programsfunctioned and how closely programs followed the models developed (An-derson & Drucker, 1976a, 1976b; Durgin, 1976; Smith & Theophano, 1976).The studies followed students and staff as they implemented the programsconnecting students with community-based learning.

Investigators found that student learning in the community did not go asplanned. The two models called for structured activities at off-campus sites—one via a Project Plan and the other through an Activity Sheet. Students didnot use these planning devices appropriately; in fact, they saw them as obstacles.Many learning plans were written after the fact, instead of before, and studentplanning often depended on the strength of the work-site supervisor.

School site personnel responsible for supervising these planning docu-ments were often concerned more with the quantity of activities than with thequality (Anderson & Drucker, 1976b). They would check things off in aperfunctory manner and avoid the opportunity to discuss these activities withthe student to measure the learning.

In another study using ethnographic methods, Moore (1982) describedobservations made during a 3-year project at an experientially based high




218 EDUCATION AND URBAN SOCIETY/February 1996

school in an urban setting. The school set up internships in field settings andstudents spent most of their time (4 days per week) learning at the off-campussites Like the EBCE programs, many of these community sites providedopportunity for service learning; in fact, many of the settings were inhospitals, museums, schools, and other settings that allowed students to doservice as they earned their credit and completed their work.

The study reported that experiential learning revolved around tasks.Students learned about organizations and about applications of knowledgeby performing various tasks, or jobs, at the sites. Moore (1982) analyzed thetask episodes as to how they were learned and how the tasks fit into thestructure and purpose of the organization. Discussion focused on the processof setting up the tasks, getting information from the environment, anddefining criteria for judging performance.

The research team discovered that reflection—thinking about experiencesin broader terms—occurred occasionally in the community settings but notas often as desired. School programs had to add elements that assured thatthe reflective process took place. Moore (1982) said:

Reflection rarely occurs as a natural component of work experience; that it hasto be added on by educators. Our observations suggest that opportunities forreflection actually turn up in the real world more often than one might expect,although clearly not enough to satisfy us as educators. Both feedback andreflection may be regarded to some extent as corrective processes loca t ingand understanding naturally-occurring opportunities for reflection strike us asimportant goals for experiential educators since this might streamline andenhance the educational potential of our programs. (p. 9)

Thus reflective practices need to be important and intentional elements ofsound educational programs.

Another study of experiential programs (Hamilton, 1981) described im-portant elements of community-based learning. The overall work highlightedthe different outcomes of community-learning models based on their pro-gram design and what students do in the learning process. Depending onwhether youth work with adults or other youth, they learn different things.Different students have different agendas for what they want to get out of aprogram. They also have different kinds of experiences depending on howthey interact with people at the site, so the predictability of what is to belearned is greatly reduced in experiential programs.

Hamilton (1981) also noted that staff roles differed depending on programdesign and program goals. In some programs, staff worked more as counsel-ors or mentors, providing guidance and feedback to students. In others, they




Shumer, Babas / WHAT WE KNOW 2 1 9

worked more like regular teachers, closely directing learning activities.Hamilton (1981) also commented on the wide variation of experiences

found in community-based learning programs. This variation places greatchallenges to those who must evaluate such programs, especially whenconcerned about examining the internal changes in each student for areassuch as affect and cognition. He suggests that "only long-term longitudinalstudies following participants and comparable non-participants into adult-hood and assessing career achievements and citizenship activities coulddemonstrate these kinds of effects" (p. 31).

Various themes raised by Hamilton (1981) were explored in a 6-monthstudy of a magnet high school program in a large urban area. Shumer (1987)studied the role of school staff in operating a community-based learningprogram, as well as how high-quality learning experiences were developedand monitored. He found that the quality of learning could be enhanced byschool staff who invested time and energy at community sites. By workingwith site supervisors, learning activities could be developed that captured thepotential of the site.

It was also found that the quality of learning at the site depended on thelevel of responsibility given to students. However, in this study, i t wasdiscovered that the level of responsibility was actually earned by the interest,attitude, and behavior of the student—as perceived by the site staff. Tasks, asMoore (1982) referred to them, were assigned based on what the sitesupervisor thought of the student during the first few visits. Thus studentbehavior and attitude had some bearing on the quality of the learning.

It was also noted that curriculum developed for the community sites wasbest implemented by the site staff actually involved in writing the material.All the sites in this program had curriculum developed by school staff, theresearcher, and by site staff collaboratively. However, only in sites where thecommunity staff both developed the material and worked on it with studentswas there more effective implementation of the educational activities. At siteswhere the curriculum was transmitted by someone else, the quality level oflearning (specifically related to the academic content outlined) was lower.Students would be as likely to be doing some nonacademic activity orsomething unrelated to the objectives of the site. There was even a noticeabledifference in how site staff checked on student attendance, wi th thoseinvolved in writing the curriculum supervising the students more than thosewho did not produce the materials.

A study conducted on an experiential/service-learning program designedfor potential dropouts produced important information about the value ofcommunity experiences for student retention and school success (Shumer,





1990, 1994). Conducted at a K-12 magnet school in a large city, quantitativeand qualitative data were collected on student attendance and grades, as wellas on program components that were valued by students. Several case studieswere conducted on students in the experimental and comparison programs.Interviews and observations were collected over a period of 4 months.Whereas the focus of the program was on community-based learning, manyof the experiences of the students were through service-learning activitiesconducted in such settings as schools, hospitals, and nonprofit communityagencies.

Results of the study indicated that students in the community-learningprogram made significant improvement in attendance and grade averages, asreported by both quantitative data and by interviews and observations.Students, who also rank ordered program components, reported that it wasthe community experiences, related to careers and to service, that kept themin school. They felt that such experiences help provide meaning and contextfor their learning, allowing them to connect classroom activities with learningabout life, careers, and citizenship. The most important influence on theirlearning came from the college students who taught and tutored them invarious subjects. Students reported they were more comfortable with thesetutors who were closer in age than their official teachers; it was more like"working with a friend than a real teacher." College students also helpedteachers to individualize instruction and to provide extra assistance in theclassroom, promoting the community-based components of the program.

An examination of exemplary practices in service learning was conductedat the Center for Experiential Education and Service-Learning at the Univer-sity of Minnesota's Department of Vocational and Technical Education. Fivestudies were conducted on a K-8 open school, 9-12 comprehensive highschool, two Girl Scout troops, and a teacher development program (Gorak,Huang, & Shumer, 1993; Huang & Shumer, 1993; Maland & Bericas, 1993;McPeak & Shumer, 1993, Shumer, 1993).

The studies revealed that all programs were initiated by individuals whovalued the use of the community for learning. Teachers and/or administratorsstarted the school-based programs, whereas interested leaders began the GirlScout efforts. Besides being started by individuals who believe in the princi-ples of service learning, exemplary programs demonstrate good communica-tion between all parties, especially between the school personnel and thecommunity sponsors. Such communication involves regular dialogue be-tween the two groups and a willingness to talk through problems as they arise.

Another finding was that youth participate in service-learning programsbecause they are fun. The motivational aspects o f service learning, the




enjoyment and pleasure, seem to be essential elements of these supposedlyexemplary programs.

Still another theme of these studies was that service learning (and experi-ential learning) is holistic. When students described what they learned fromthe service experience, it was always more than just about subject matter—itwas about many things. They learned about themselves and their skills andabilities; they came to know the world of adults and adult behaviors; theylearned about careers and about occupations; and they saw how subjects areapplied in real-world settings.

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

Shumer, Belbas / WHAT WE KNOW 2 2 1

What do we know about service learning? The previous discussion hope-fully shows we know much more than people usually describe when they talkabout service programs. By creating a central clearinghouse on the subject,people are now able to contribute information about programs, organizations,conferences, consultants, and articles and publications, and to receive infor-mation about such topics. The creation of an electronic communicationsystem now allows individuals to share information instantaneously withanyone in the country (or world) and enables people to read and retrieve dataon people and programs without human assistance. Whatever we know aboutservice learning is now available to anyone and everyone who has access toa phone or a computer.

Having this central system allows us to begin a new line of inquiry intothe field: What is really going on with service learning? From California toMaine, from Oregon to Florida, people are sharing their stories about thepractice of service learning. And they are contributing to a new database andinformation system that never existed before. That database is revealing newunderstandings about who is doing service and why and how programs aredeveloping and expanding. This is important information for the field—andfor education in general.

We know service learning has a rich history of evaluation and research.Tied to other areas, such as vocational education or community-based learn-ing, we know it contributes significantly to development of self-esteem, tocareer awareness, and to academic connections between classroom andcommunity. It is based primarily around tasks and is best practiced whenexperiences are processed on a regular basis.

Although we know a lot about service learning, there is still much moreto learn about service and its affect on learning. The creation of a national





information system has moved the field one giant step closer to its rightfulplace as a legitimate subject of inquiry and practice.

REFERENCES

Anderson, S., & Drucker, C. B. (1976a). Experience-based career education in Charleston, WestVirginia. An anthropological perspective (External evaluator's final report on EBCE pro-grams, Vol. 2). Berkeley, CA: Educational Testing Service.

Anderson, S., & Drucker, C. B. (1976b). Experience-based career education in Oakkvid,California: An anthropological perspective (External evaluator's final report on EBCEprograms, Vol. 3). Berkeley, CA: Educational Testing Service.

Buclmam, I t B., & Brand, S. G. (1983). EBCE really works. Educational Leadership, 40(6),66-71.

Conrad, D., & Hedin, D. (1982). The impact of experiential education on adolescent develop-ment. Child and Youth Services, 4(3/4), 57-76. Haworth.

Durgin, E. C. (1976). An ethnographic account of (CE)12: EBCE in llgard, Oregon (Externalevaluator's final report on EBCE programs, Vol. 5). Berkeley, CA: Educational TestingService.

Farrar, E., Cohen, D., & deSanctis, J. (1980). The lawn party: The evolution of federal programsin local settings. Phi Delta Kappan, 62(3), 167-171.

Giles, D., Porter Honnet, E., & Nfigliore, S. (Eds). (1991). Research agenda for combiningservice and learning in the 1990s. Raleigh, NC: National Society for Internships andExperiential Education.

Gorak, K., Huang, G., & Shumer, R. (1993). Exemplary practices in service-learning at an openschool in an urban setting. St. Paul: University of Minnesota, Center for ExperientialEducation and Service-Learning, Department of Vocational and Technical Education.

Hamilton, S. F. (1981). Adolescents in community settings: What is to be learned? Theory andResearch in Social Education, 9(2), 23-38.

Huang, G., & Shumer, R. (1993). A service-learning program. St. Paul: University of Minnesota,Center for Experiential Education and Service-Learning, Department of Vocational andTechnical Education.

Maland, J., & Berkas, T. (1993). Excellence in action: The Community Service-LearningProgram. St. Paul: University of Minnesota, Generator Center, Department of Vocationaland Technical Education.

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What We Know about Service Learning

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