Service-Learning in Higher Education: Teaching about Poverty and Mental Health

Abstract

Within tertiary education, service-learning can offer deeply engaging and transformational experiences for students, broadening their consideration of a host of social justice issues of our time, including diversity and inclusion. This chapter describes how service-learning interfaces with two areas in particular, both of which have wide-ranging public health implications and are generally misrepresented in public media: poverty and mental health. Representative studies are highlighted and case examples are presented in each domain, concluding with recommendations for future research. The authors argue that service-learning courses addressing social justice issues such as poverty and mental health can lead to deep learning in students if they are sequenced to include both direct service-learning that concretizes the issue and community-based research that highlights the public policy challenges and implications of addressing that issue systemically.

Citation

Mick, C.S. and Frabutt, J.M. (2017), "Service-Learning in Higher Education: Teaching about Poverty and Mental Health", Service-Learning (International Perspectives on Inclusive Education, Vol. 12), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 215-240. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-363620170000012014