Countering the Service-Learning Privilege Problem Through Critical Communication Pedagogy and Critical Assessment

Abstract

Because the communication discipline values action, civility, and service, it has placed emphasis on the integration of service-learning in its courses. Service-learning has the potential to bridge the gap between the classroom and the community by employing social justice pedagogy–activism that takes critical learning to sites of hegemony. However, service-learning can also promote the unintended side effect of entrenching beliefs about privilege. Therefore, we advocate for a critical service-learning to be facilitated through a critical communication pedagogy (CCP) framework, which emphasizes the recognition and response to hegemony that students encounter. Such an approach employs critical assessment, a means by which to reframe traditional assessment procedures to focus on both content knowledge and its application to ameliorate hegemony in society.