Athens Journal of Education - Volume 6 - Issue 2 - Requisite Community Engagement for Teacher Education - A Different Take on Service Learning

Oct 15, 2026

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Explores how pre-service teachers respond to community engagement implemented as a service-learning project within an introductory education course at a large U.S. urban university. Argues that future teachers must learn from the communities in which they teach, emphasizing residents’ “funds of knowledge” and empowerment. Uses qualitative analysis of student response papers to report findings in a curriculum oriented toward critical social justice and culturally competent teaching.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Service learning in teacher education

Funds of knowledge and empowerment lens

Addressing deficit theories and structural inequities

Praxis, pedagogy, and culturally sustaining practice

Athens Journal of Education-Volume 6, Issue 2 – Pages 93-110 Requisite Community Engagement for Teacher Education: A Different Take on Service Learning By Deborah Biss Keller 􀀍 This article examines pre-service teachers’ responses to their experiences with community engagement as a service learning project as part of an introductory Education course at a large, midwestern urban university in the United States. It is typical for students in pre-service Education courses to participate in service learning in schools or community centers, but it is less common for Education courses to require service learning projects in which the focus is for students to engage with adult community members. I argue that it is imperative for students to become familiar with communities in which they teach and learn from residents’ "funds of knowledge"(Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005) . A service learning project with a community center, the focus of which is empowerment of local residents, is described. Located inan urban neighborhood in which most of the residents are of a racial minority different from most of the pre-service students themselves, the center provided the space for the class to learn from adult community residents about issues surrounding empowerment and community engagement. Drawing upon Freire’s (2003) notion of praxis I present findings of a qualitative analysis of students’ response papers in the context of a curriculum that focuses on critical social justice and the development of culturally competent teachers. Keywords: Agency, Community engagement, Critical social justice, Pre-service teacher education, Service learning Introduction Service learning for teacher education has become part of the curriculum in many pre-service teacher programs. While Education course work often includes students participating in asset based studies of school children’s/youths’communities, service learning typically takes the form of students working with children/youth in schools or community centers and reflecting about the experience with regard to one’s own biases, pedagogical techniques, and cultural competency among other elements. What is not as common, however, is service learning that engages students working with adults in the community in order to learn more about the community and residents in general and the residents’ funds of knowledge, defined by Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti (2005) as encompassing the idea that "people are competent, they have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge" (preface, pp. ix-x). According to them, this concept undergirds the depiction of communities with regard to their resources and how to utilize them in the classroom. Their aim is to provide a lens in which households in "working-class or poor communities" (preface, p. x) are seen 􀀍 Clinical Associate Professor, Indiana University-Purdue University, USA. [https://doi.org/10.30958/aje.6-2-1](https://doi.org/10.30958/aje.6-2-1) doi=10.30958/aje.6-2-1 Vol. 6, No. 2 Keller: Requisite Community Engagement for Teacher Education… predominantly through their strengths and their assets, which can inform pedagogical practice. Similarly, Buck & Sylvester (2005), in a project with Masters students in Elementary Education at the University of Pennsylvania, described the basic goal of having their students do research on urban neighborhood communities as viewing "urban families and communities as resources of talent, knowledge, and possibility" (p. 214). They noted that such research and curriculum can facilitate an environment for social change and student agency. This is in direct contrast to deficit theories, which hold that minority, low-income children do poorly in school because their backgrounds are"linguistically or cognitively" lacking (Collins, 1988, p. 300), or that they are culturally deficient (Payne, 2005, as cited in Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017, p. 82). This fails to acknowledge systemic and structural forces

FAQs

What does the article use to analyze students’ experiences?

It presents findings from a qualitative analysis of students’ response papers created within a curriculum centered on critical social justice and the development of culturally competent teachers.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Mimi