“How Can I Uproot the System?”: Justice-Oriented Outcomes From Community-Based Research in Schools

Abstract

This paper is based on a qualitative case study designed to answer the following research question: “What learning about justice resulted from this collaboratively created service-learning class driven by a community-based research pedagogy?” It demonstrates how researching alongside primary stakeholders in Title I schools produced justice-oriented learning outcomes for students. Specifically, the course helped students better understand the value of diversity, their own deficit perspectives, systemic inequality, and the university’s responsibility to the surrounding community. The course also fostered in students the ability to distinguish paternalistic models of service from empowering models of service, the ability to identify unjust policies, a desire for advocacy, and an openness to working in Title I schools. One author of this paper is a service-learning professional, and the other is a faculty member who instructed this course.