International Service Learning: Engaging Host Communities

✍ Scribed by Marianne Larsen (editor)

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 302
• Series: Routledge Research in International and Comparative Education
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

International service learning (ISL) programs are growing more popular with students looking to advance their skills and knowledge to become global citizens. While the benefits of these programs among students are well documented, little is known about the implications they have on host communities themselves. This volume explores the impact of ISL programs on members of host communities (e.g. host families and local partner NGOs) who are increasingly influenced by the presence of international students in their lives. Drawing upon post-colonial, feminist and other critical and decolonizing theories, it examines the complicated power relations between North American ISL students and host communities in East and West Africa, the Caribbean and Central America. It stresses the importance of developing trusting relations between ISL students, faculty and individuals in the host communities to create mutually engaging learning experiences.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgements
PART I Overview
1. International Service Learning: Engaging Host Communities—Introduction
2. Epistemological, Methodological, and Theoretical Challenges of Carrying Out ISL Research Involving Host Communities: A Conversation
PART II Case Studies: Impact of ISL on Host Communities
3. Saying It Doesn’t Make It So: Do We Listen and Act When the Host Community Tells Us What They Want?
4. Solidarity or Neo-Colonialism? The Challenges of Understanding the Impact of ISL on Nicaraguan Host Communities
5. The Economic Circle: Impacts of Volunteerism and Service Learning on Three Rural Communities in Costa Rica
6. Southern Perspectives on ISL Volunteers: Reframing the Neo-Colonial Encounter
7. International Service Learning in a Tanzanian Host Community: Post-Colonial Insights
8. In the Right Relationship: A Case Study of International Service Learning in Eastern Africa
9. Orient(aliz)ation: A Case Study of North American International Education Programs at the University of Ghana
10. Struggles for Mutuality: Conceptualizing Hosts as Participants in International Service Learning in Ghana
PART III Rethinking and Re-Imagining ISL and Host Community Relations
11. Reflections From a Nicaraguan Career ISL Program Coordinator: Challenges and Guidelines for Moving Forward
12. Many Meanings: Moving Reciprocity Towards Interdependence
13. Resipwosite as a Guiding Framework for Rethinking Mutual Exchange in Global Service Learning Partnerships: Findings From a Case Study of the Haiti Compact
14. A Cross-Cultural Conversation About International Service Learning in Ghana
15. The Potential of ISL: Re-Examining Ethical Engagement Amongst ISL Partners
16. Fair Trade Learning: A Framework for Ethical Global Partnerships
17. Mi Casa Es Tu Casa: A Framework for Reciprocal Public Benefit
18. I Am Because We Are: Rethinking Service Learning and the Possibility of Learning From Ubuntu
19. Conclusion: ISL and Host Communities—Relationships and Responsibility
Contributors
Index