Promoting Social Justice through Service-Learning in Urban Teacher Education: The Role of Student Voice

Abstract

Although service-learning is becoming more common in teacher education programs (Anderson & Erickson 2003), few detailed case descriptions show how service-learning can help to promote a social justice orientation for prospective teachers. A comparative descriptive analysis of projects within two teacher preparation programs--one focused on training undergraduates and one focused on training graduate students--illustrates how service-learning, when undergirded by student voice work, prepares prospective educators to teach for social justice in urban classrooms. We identify commonalities in our two approaches to integrating service-learning and student voice into the teacher education curriculum, and we show how our distinctive efforts support prospective teachers in developing the relationships, reflections, and practices they need to become effective educators of urban youth.