When service-learning educators of future generations look back at the development of the field, they may well point to three events at the turn of the century as watershed moments in service-learning research. In 1999, Janet Eyler and Dwight Giles published Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning?, drawing upon their own ambitious nationwide studies and dozens of smaller studies to document the effects of service-learning on students’ academic learning, personal growth, moral development, career preparation, and citizenship skills. In 2000, the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning printed a special issue, “Strategic Directions for Service-Learning Research,” to address these questions: “What is the present state of affairs in service-learning research? What do we still need to know? What are the research priorities for the next five years?” (Howard, Gelmon, and Giles 5). Contributors to the issue considered the phenomenal growth of service-learning programs throughout the 1990s, assessed the breadth and depth of current knowledge about the impact of service-learning, identified the most pressing questions still before us, weighed the merits of qualitative and quantitative methods, and reflected on relationships among research, theory, and practice.
A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric