Facilitating Active Citizenship in Students Through the Strengthening of University-Community Partnerships

2019 ◽  
pp. 904-933
Author(s):  
Rika Swanzen ◽  
Victoria L. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Active Citizenship ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Field Supervisors ◽  
University Community

In South Africa, the integration of community engagement into research and teaching roles is mandated through policy guidelines, which created the need for transformation of Higher Education (HE) since the late 1990s. One approach that allows such integration is service-learning and this approach is the focus of a research study conducted with field supervisors to determine the level of reciprocal engagement experienced by them. Communication plays a strong role in authentic university-community partnerships (UCPs) and Monash South Africa is cognisant of the challenges encountered with regard to diversity during placements or internships, some of which were discovered through the study. The ultimate aim of the chapter is to offer some recommendations for having a student-engaged and community-focused curriculum with reflections on its internationality and inter-disciplinary impact.

Facilitating Active Citizenship in Students through the Strengthening of University-Community Partnerships

2016 ◽  
pp. 284-312
Author(s):  
Rika Swanzen ◽  
Victoria L. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Active Citizenship ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Field Supervisors ◽  
University Community

In South Africa, the integration of community engagement into research and teaching roles is mandated through policy guidelines, which created the need for transformation of Higher Education (HE) since the late 1990s. One approach that allows such integration is service-learning and this approach is the focus of a research study conducted with field supervisors to determine the level of reciprocal engagement experienced by them. Communication plays a strong role in authentic university-community partnerships (UCPs) and Monash South Africa is cognisant of the challenges encountered with regard to diversity during placements or internships, some of which were discovered through the study. The ultimate aim of the chapter is to offer some recommendations for having a student-engaged and community-focused curriculum with reflections on its internationality and inter-disciplinary impact.

scholarly journals Community engagement as the organic link with the street: Creating a learning community between the academy and homeless people in Tshwane

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nico Botha
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Church History ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Context Analysis ◽  
Current Form

Does the current community engagement project, of the Department of Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology at the University of South Africa (UNISA), respond to the conceptual discourse on community engagement? Informed by this question this article’s objective is two-pronged. Firstly, an attempt is made to locate the project’s beginning in a proper historical perspective by engaging the initial ministry of the Department with homeless people. The narrative about the work of a Mennonite couple is told by structuring it around the dimensions of agency (identification or insertion), context analysis, strategies for mission and theological reflection or in simple terms, the reading of the Bible. Secondly, this article proceeds by subjecting both the initial ministry with homeless people and the community engagement project, in its current form, to the scrutiny of three high ranking publications from the Higher Education Quality Committee in collaboration with JET Education Services, the Council on Higher Education and a handbook on service learning in South Africa on the conceptual clarification of service learning and community engagement. As the documents reveal some difference of opinion amongst the experts, the bottom-line is that unless the interaction between the academy and the community (homeless people) is a consistent, sustainable, reciprocal and mutual process aimed at creating a genuine learning community, the project is called into question. A further issue is that the engagement between the parties must find reflection in what is taught – students or learners are to benefit from this – and researched.

scholarly journals A Critical Approach to University-Community Partnerships: Reflecting on the Diverse Realities

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Heloise Sathorar ◽  
Deldre Geduld
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Contested Space ◽  
The Core ◽  
Self Study ◽  
Engagement Process ◽  
Study Methodology ◽  
University Community

Postapartheid South Africa has seen a greater focus on community engagement by universities, and its inclusion as one of the core focus areas of higher education in addition to teaching and research. This focus on engagement with the community was ignited by a requirement to enhance the university's social responsibility through establishing partnerships with the communities it serves. Higher education institutions have traditionally positioned themselves in engagement projects as the singular organisation that has knowledge to offer when compared to what the community can offer. In this paper, we propose a critical engagement process to enhance collaboration in engagement projects. Our qualitative study resides in a critical theory paradigm, and we used drawings as well as narrative free writing to reflect and explore our perceptions regarding community engagement. We used the collaborative self-study methodology because it provides opportunities for critical and self-critical reflection that could lead us to discovering valuable insights, as well as provide suggestions on how to enhance university community partnerships. Our findings suggest that, despite legislation and efforts to enhance university community engagement, this remains a contested space where power relations, inequality, and claims to knowledge ownership continue to pose challenges.

scholarly journals Enhancing the Quality and Relevance of Teaching and Learning through University Community Partnerships: the Case of Art at Makerere University

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21
Author(s):  
Ritah N. Edopu ◽  
J B Mpoza ◽  
Edith Namutebi
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Community Partnership ◽  
Makerere University ◽  
Education Delivery ◽  
The University ◽  
University Community

A key gap in writing on the University Community Partnership (UCP) approach to higher education delivery relates to the fact that, in general, the fruitfulness of the approach is taken for granted. Furthermore, the usefulness of UCPs is tacitly expected to be two-way with universities helping their communities to address some of their challenges and the experience of partnership helping the universities to enhance their relevance. However, this paper reports the findings of a study that presents a different picture. Investigating the implementation and impact of the UCP approach to the delivery of the Bachelor of Industrial and Fine Arts program at Makerere University’s Margaret Trowel School of Industrial and Fine Arts (MTSIFA), the study found that contrary to the widely held view that the approach to higher education delivery results into universities helping their communities to deal with some of their challenges, at the MTSIFA, the approach has not resulted into service learning. However, it has helped the school to close critical gaps in studio support for its students, thereby enhancing the quality and relevance of teaching and learning. Therefore, using this case, the study argues that UCPs present a panacea to some of the resources constraints inherent to massification that many HEIs in Africa are grappling with.

1. The Neoliberal Logic of Service-Learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Snider Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Community Based ◽  
University Partnerships ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Relationship

<?page nr="1"?>Abstract This article investigates the ways in which service-learning manifests within our neoliberal clime, suggesting that service-learning amounts to a foil for neoliberalism, allowing neoliberal political and economic changes while masking their damaging effects. Neoliberalism shifts the relationship between the public and the private, structures higher education, and promotes a façade of community-based university partnerships while facilitating a pervasive regime of control. This article demonstrates that service-learning amounts to an enigma of neoliberalism, making possible the privatization of the public and the individualizing of social problems while masking evidence of market-based societal control. Neoliberal service-learning distances service from teaching and learning, allows market forces to shape university-community partnerships, and privatizes the public through dispossession by accumulation.

Teaching Interreligious Encounter

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Gustafson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Guest Speakers

This chapter offers instructors in higher education some basic tools and elements of course design for interreligious encounter in the undergraduate classroom. Aiming at practice over theory, it provides practical suggestions for fostering interreligious understanding from the first day of class through the end of the semester. These suggestions include the use of guest speakers, interdisciplinary case studies, in-class reflections, and interreligious community engagement (i.e., “service learning”), among others. Further, it provides a concise bibliography of basic introductory texts for both students and instructors in the areas of comparative theology, theologies of religions and religious pluralisms, and interreligious studies and dialogue.

scholarly journals What makes or breaks higher education community engagement in the South African rural school context: A multiple-partner perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Gabriel Machimana ◽  
Maximus Monaheng Sefotho ◽  
Liesel Ebersöhn
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
School Context ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Rural School ◽  
Multiple Partner ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Education Community ◽  
Wide Range

The purpose of this study is to inform global citizenship practice as a higher education agenda by comparing the retrospective experiences of a range of community engagement partners and including often silent voices of non-researcher partners. Higher education–community engagement aims to contribute to social justice as it constructs and transfers new knowledge from the perspectives of a wide range of community engagement partners. This qualitative secondary analysis study was framed theoretically by the transformative–emancipatory paradigm. Existing case data, generated on retrospective experiences of community engagement partners in a long-term community engagement partnership, were conveniently sampled to analyse and compare a range of community engagement experiences ( parents of student clients ( n = 12: females 10, males 2), teachers from the partner rural school ( n = 18: females 12, males 6), student-educational psychology clients ( n = 31: females 14, males 17), Academic Service-Learning ( ASL) students ( n = 20: females 17, males 3) and researchers ( n = 12: females 11, males 1). Following thematic in-case and cross-case analysis, it emerged that all higher education–community engagement partners experienced that socio-economic challenges (defined as rural school adversities, include financial, geographic and social challenges) are addressed when an higher education–community engagement partnership exists, but that particular operational challenges (communication barriers, time constraints, workload and unclear scope, inconsistent feedback, as well as conflicting expectations) hamper higher education–community engagement partnership. A significant insight from this study is that a range of community engagement partners experience similar challenges when a university and rural school partner. All community engagement partners experienced that higher education–community engagement is challenged by the structural disparity between the rural context and operational miscommunication.

Accelerating the implementation of SDG 4: stakeholder perceptions towards initiation of sustainable community engagement projects by higher education institutions

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lombuso Precious Shabalala ◽  
Sisa Ngcwangu
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Stakeholder Perceptions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sustainable Community

Purpose This paper aims to present the results of an investigation on how a reciprocal relationship between the University of Mpumalanga (UMP) in South Africa and the surrounding communities can be used to accelerate the implementation of sustainable development goal 4 (SDG 4). The aim of this paper is to establish stakeholder perceptions on the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the development and implementation of sustainable community engagement (CE) projects geared towards the acceleration of SDG 4. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative methodology was adopted. This consisted of a presentation at UMP, an educational tour of the campus and discussion sessions with 3 education officials and 19 high schools representatives from Ehlanzeni District Municipality, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Content and narrative analysis were used to analyse the data obtained during the discussions. Findings The key findings indicate that a reciprocal relationship between HEIs and their surrounding communities can be used to accelerate the implementation of SDG 4 by positioning HEIs to take the lead with initiatives and implementation of CE projects. Research limitations/implications For HEIs to be in a better position to take a leading role in CE, they must guide without imposing, else it may lead to stakeholders losing interest. Practical implications The importance of a mutual working relationship between HEIs and communities becomes paramount, as it may lead to the realisation and acceleration of SDG 4 through CE. It is suggested that HEIs prioritise CE and also involve communities from the conceptualisation of any project. Originality/value The paper raises awareness and demonstrates the importance and possibilities of using CE towards the acceleration of the implementation of SDG 4 by HEIs.

scholarly journals Two steps forward, one step back: Achievements and limitations of university-community partnerships in addressing neighbourhood socioeconomic disadvantage

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Warr ◽  
Richard Williams
Keyword(s):  
Community Service ◽  
Research University ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Public Access ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
One Step ◽  
Local Value ◽  
University Community

This article discusses a partnership initiative that involved a major Australian research university (University of Melbourne), a local government and a network of local community service organisations. The partnership projects aimed to promote public access to university infrastructure for poor and marginalised residents, enhance the local value of research and teaching activities, and create employment opportunities. The article draws on an evaluation of the partnership, which focused on four keynote projects. It found that the partnership appeared to achieve positive outcomes for residents but was limited by tensions associated with the university’s ambivalent commitment to the value of such partnerships. These tensions remained difficult to resolve because they signalled present contestation over the foundational values of contemporary public universities.Keywords: university-community partnerships, neoliberalism, neighbourhoods, community development

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