Introduction

Universities , particularly in Australia , are seeking ways to expand and enhance the student experience. Whilst some universities have long-standing international programmes, the growth of these programmes in recent years is in response, at least in part, to the demands of globalization . Globalization is both driven by and a driver of higher education . It is a phenomenon resulting from an increasing worldwide connectedness that combines economic, political, and social change (OECD, 2009). An outcome of globalization has been the drive by higher education institutions worldwide towards greater international involvement. A result of this drive has been recognition of the role of universities to prepare students for a more globalized world and globalized workforce by increasing access to these programmes (Harman, 2005).

One area of burgeoning development in education is service-learning (Boland, 2009; Butin, 2006). Whilst the growth of service-learning programmes is evidenced at all levels of schooling (Billig, 2000) and is sometimes called civic engagement (Boland, 2009), this chapter focuses on international service-learning and service-oriented outward bound mobility programmes in higher education and critiques the programmes in terms of their value to the student, the institution, and the host organization.

While the very nature of this book is the internationalization of higher education in an era of a more globalized world, this chapter looks at internationalization through the lens of service-learning. To understand the perspective of this chapter, though, one must fully understand the concept of the service-learning programmes as described herein. Generally, service learning when used as a noun is not hyphenated, but when used as an adjective, it is. That said, in the matter service-learning is described and explicated throughout this chapter, the hyphen goes beyond that of a punctuation mark and instead denotes the equality of the terms service and learning, both being dependent on the other to be a thorough definition of what is described.

The concepts of service-learning and civic engagement have been explicated and debated for over two generations in the literature (Butin, 2006), and this chapter will not attempt to add to that debate but rather critique modern programmes that are seeking to break the mould of more traditional service-oriented programmes to better understand the potential of service-learning in higher education . Proponents of service-learning have reported a wide-ranging array of benefits for students who undertake such programmes. Service-learning has been found to increase participants’ sense of personal efficacy, awareness of the world, awareness of personal value, and levels of engagement (Astin, Vogelgesang, Ikeda, & Yee, 2000). There is evidence to suggest that students who partake in these programmes show higher levels of cognitive development (Eyler & Giles, 1999; Osborne, Hammerich, & Hensley, 1998) and see positive effects on personal leadership and communication skills (Giles & Eyler, 1994; Vogelgesang & Astin, 2000; Wade & Yarborough, 1996), and some programmes have been found to encourage the “moral imagination” (Strain, 2005, p. 71). However, there has been a long-standing argument against these programmes, which is, in the current context, gaining momentum (Butin, 2006; Cruz, 1990; Eby, 1998; Illich, 1968; Mathers, 2012; Morton, 1995; Winkler, 2016; Zakaria, 2014).

Ivan Illich, a Catholic monsignor and social activist, was an outspoken critic of service-oriented programmes in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. In one of his most famous speeches on the topic (Illich, 1968), he criticized a group of well-meaning volunteers on their way to Latin America. Whilst Illich’s speech in 1968 was meant to be antagonistic and unapologetic, it must be taken in the context of the time and location (antiwar sentiment was growing in the wake of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam , and only two weeks before this speech Martin Luther King Jr was murdered).

Whilst the setting of Illich’s speech is contextual, historically much of what he said at the time is still useful in analysing and critiquing these sorts of programmes in the current era. Stanton, Giles, and Cruz highlighted this over a decade ago when writing about the origins of service-learning:

Early practitioners were … motivated by early family and community experience, by deep philosophical and spiritual values, and especially by political events and social movements of the 1960s. Although they articulate varying priorities in terms of seeking impact on students, communities, and postsecondary education missions and curricula, they share a deep commitment to connecting with the academy (especially students) with issues, people, and suffering in off-campus communities. (1999, p. 241)

This sentiment is easily seen in Illich’s speech; however, the paternalism he speaks of is still common, even if not openly acknowledged, in many service-learning programmes today. This chapter presents two programmes, from the same institution, that have attempted to look at service-learning from a different point of view—that of the host institution. In using these programmes as a baseline of contemporary service-learning programmes, the concept and fundamental ideas of international service-learning will be discussed and critiqued.

Background of the Programmes

The two international service-learning immersion programmes, one to Kenya and the other to India , were borne out of the need and desire of host institutions. The Kenya Immersion Program, which has been running since 2011, was started on the back of a guest lecture by the CEO of the host organization to initial teacher education students at the University of Notre Dame, Australia . The CEO of So They Can told the story of her experience in starting a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that built a school for the children of internally displaced peoples in Kenya; the address stressed the importance of education as a vehicle to end the cycle of poverty. In the aftermath of that lecture, a group of academics and students started to fundraise for the NGO and put that money towards the building of three new classrooms. That tradition has continued, and nine such classrooms have been built with funds raised by the staff and students of Notre Dame.

In 2011, the NGO asked the academics to come to the school and help build the capacity of the teachers at the school. The school, like many others like it in the Global South, is examination-based and employs mostly didactic teaching methods. As part of the invitation, the academics were asked to help shape a more student-centred approach to learning. The academics ended up turning this into a service-learning venture and brought teacher education students along to help teach classes whilst there.

The India Immersion came to fruition slightly differently but from a similar perspective. A colleague at the university approached the academics that initiated the Kenya programme and told them about a children’s home in India that his family set up and that he financially supported. His dream was to build a school for those children, who were primarily from a Dalit (untouchable) background and had limited future prospects. Planning for the school ensued and in 2013, the decision was made to turn this into another service-learning immersion. In 2014, the first immersion took place and upon return to Australia , a group of students and those staff members started an Australian-based charity and built a school for those children. This has now become an annual service-learning project with the same mission as the Kenya programme—to help educate the children and the teachers.

These programmes have been developed and initiated to provide a service to the community in which the programmes take place. Approximately 200 students have now taken part in these programmes, and both the participant institution and the host institution rely on the programmes and the relationships that have been developed to sustain the programmes and project initiatives. The university and the host institutions have committed to these projects being ongoing.

Methodology

After two visits to Kenya and one to India , the academics who developed the programmes wanted to evaluate whether their programmes had measurable, in qualitative terms, benefits, not only to the teacher education students who participated but also to the host institutions and communities. Whilst this chapter does not present the data collected nor the results of that data (see Kearney & Athota, 2017; Kearney, Perkins, & Maakrun, 2014; Maakrun, 2016), it contextualizes these programmes as a point of comparison for others to evaluate their own. It does this in light of past, present, and future criticisms about international experiences in education as tokenistic voluntourism that only benefits the students partaking in those experiences, sometimes at the expense of the host institutions.

The broader research project on which this chapter is based employed a qualitative ethnographic case-oriented understanding (Schutt, 2009) approach to explore the impact of two international service-learning immersion programmes for teacher education students at one university. Although not a true ethnography, the approach had significant aspects of the methodology. Specifically, the researchers used the time in each country to immerse with the teacher education students to better understand the impact of the experience from their perspectives. An additional facet of the research was to observe and interview the members of the host organization to try and better understand the impact of the “service” on the host institution and community. Semistructured interviews and observations were used to identify the attitudes and dispositions of the teachers towards service-learning. Peckeral and Peters (1998) advocate for the use of such qualitative tools in order to assess positive and negative features of involvement in service projects, as well as to assess the responsiveness of the project to the needs and concerns of the community being served. The interviews were conducted individually with all assenting participants. Although English was a second language for all the members of the host organization, all spoke English and declined the use of a translator.

Discussion

One focus of initial teacher education programmes is ensuring student teachers become inclusive educators. In Australia , it could be argued that many teacher education students belong to the dominant, white hegemonic culture and thus may have little or no knowledge or understanding of diversity or the problems associated with it (McCormack & O’Flaherty, 2010). The literature on service-learning is predominantly written from a “white hegemonic standpoint which privileges the perspective of the academy and focuses more on the students’ learning” (Russell-Mundine & Maakrun, 2015). This is particularly the case in contexts where teacher education students from the Global North undertake teaching experiences in the Global South. Connell refers to “authority, exclusion and inclusion, hegemony, partnership, sponsorship, appropriation—between intellectuals and institutions in the metropole and those in the world periphery” (2007, p. ix). Therefore, the role of initial teacher education programmes becomes critical if we are to raise awareness of the importance of globalization and reverse the effects of colonialism and paternalism and their impact on future generations on both sides.

Although only a brief overview of two international immersion experiences is provided, the initiating factor in the development of both of these programmes was an invitation from the host organization. Whilst a Western university “serving” an organization/school in the Global South might be seen as reminiscent of the paternalism mentioned by Illich and a possible consequence of the postcolonial age, whereby the teacher education students, because of their “white-ness” and country of origin are seen as experts by local teachers (Buchanan, Major, Harbon, & Kearney, 2017), the focus here was not on providing a service to the students of the university, although that is an outcome of the programmes, but on providing a useful service to the host community.

As a means of critique, these programmes can be viewed from either perspective: a paternalistic continuation of postcolonialism or, as the programmes were intended, to help disseminate evidence and research-based ideas to improve education for underprivileged children, regardless of their ethnic background. The issues that surround and permeate international service-oriented programmes is not that they perpetuate a postcolonial, paternalistic mind frame, as they have been shown to achieve the opposite (Astin et al., 2000; Eyler & Giles, 1999; Kearney et al., 2014); rather, it is that the service provided is not a service at all, but rather only benefits those who purport to serve.

Whilst the reported benefits of participating in programmes such as those briefly reported here, and others like them, delve into cultural competence and help those who partake in the programmes become better citizens of the world, there is little attention given to host institutions and communities that are on the receiving end of these relationships. Also missing from the research are the impacts on individuals and communities, either long or short term (Crabtree, 2008), even though many of these programmes, specifically the programmes cited throughout this chapter, are initiated by higher education institutions that are purposed, at least in part, to research and add knowledge to the public domain.

There is no doubt that there is a research bias in these sorts of programmes towards the impacts on students who participate to the exclusion of research into the impacts on communities as a result of service learning (Stoecker, Tyron, & Hilgendorf, 2009). However, the question that remains is why there is such a dearth of research into community effects. The focus of this chapter is not to answer this question or to speculate as to the answer; it is to provoke institutions and individuals who are developing and implementing these programmes to ask these questions of those programmes. If an institution or individual is going to instigate a service-learning and/or international service-oriented endeavour that includes a host institution, Illich’s sentiment about the futility of these programmes and the “good intentions” they purport should be considered:

I am here to entreat you to freely, consciously and humbly give up the legal right you have to impose your benevolence on Mexico. I am here to challenge you to recognize your inability, your powerlessness and your incapacity to do the ‘good’ which you intended to do. (Illich, 1968, p. 5)

If one were to replace “Mexico” with wherever the programme intended to “serve,” this statement provides a good means by which to judge the merit of such a venture.

Given Illich’s complete aversion to programmes that intend to do “good” in the community or the broader world, it makes it difficult to imagine any service-learning programme that would not fall afoot of Illich’s message. That said, and as previously mentioned, the context of the time must be taken into consideration. In contemporary society, we do believe that there is a place for such programmes, but they must be carefully considered and developed with a mind-set that considers the mutual benefits of such programmes. Despite the provocation and context of Illich’s speech, its relevance in contemporary society to the burgeoning international “service” programmes that are pervasive in higher education should give pause—pause to consider if what we are doing is achieving its intended goal. Three themes of Illich’s speech, and others who have written about the perils of international service-learning (see Eby, 1998; Mathers, 2012; Winkler, 2016; Zakaria, 2014), can provide a means by which to evaluate current programmes or those that are currently in development: postcolonial paternalism, white privilege, and cultural competence.

To address these concerns, service-learning partnerships need to incorporate the perspectives of all stakeholders. Jacoby (1996) highlights the importance that those being served must themselves control the service provided; that is, the needs of the community, determined by its members, will define what the service tasks will be. It can therefore be argued that for service-learning to be truly transformational, the voice of all stakeholders needs to be empathically responded to. This is not to suggest that the needs of the “learners” should be ignored, but rather, in order for programmes to flourish they need to be mutually beneficial and eschewed to the host institution, not the participants.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The challenge then for teacher education providers is to understand the best methods by which to tailor programmes that can address cross-cultural effects that assist in the preparation of culturally responsive teachers (Siwatu, 2007; Villegas & Lucas, 2002), whilst also ensuring that these programmes are tailored to the needs of the host community and/or organization so that they lead to community building across social, cultural, political, environmental, geographic, and economic boundaries (Whaley & Davis, 2007). An important step in this process is preparing participants for these programmes so they are aware of the paternalistic and postcolonial dimension of the programme. In the preparation phase, students must be given the chance to reflect on the experience, their perceptions, the perceptions of the hosts, and what they hope to get out of the experience. Most important is for the participants to understand that they are guests and there to learn from the hosts and serve the needs of the community.

International service-learning experiences are aimed at developing global awareness, developing common understandings, and collaboratively building social justice; however, it is in the development and the conceptualization of these programmes that the intent and appreciation for the paternalistic perspective must be realized. The programmes briefly outlined at the beginning of the chapter are not perfect, nor are they presented as exemplars of best practice; rather, they illustrate that there are programmes that have been conceptualized and implemented that seek to meet the needs of the host organization through a mutually beneficial and ongoing relationship. The programmes serve to fill an identified void in the host organization, allow host teachers an opportunity to reflect on elements of pedagogy and, for the host children, these experiences represent a time of learning and enjoyment. All of these are coupled with the knowledge that the hosts would see some of the same faces the following year.

There is a need and a desire to ensure that the voice of community members is heard, not only in relation to these experiences but also in the broader literature, which would be recognition of the importance of the host partner institutions. Strengthening international service-learning is reliant on the quality of the relationship developed between the host community and visiting institution. In the programmes presented here, there are ongoing longitudinal research projects into the benefits and possible detriments of the programmes over time. It is hoped that the continuing research into the host community will eventually limit the degree of social desirability bias in their communication . If international service-learning is to be strengthened more broadly, it will be up to participants and participant institutions to respond to cultural norms and sensitivities and develop open and empathic discourse to allow for the needs of all stakeholders to be concurrently met (Russell-Mundine & Maakrun, 2015).

Last, it is important to ensure that the relationships and partnerships developed are lasting and continually evolving to meet the changing and growing needs of the host community. The Kenya Immersion Program and the India Immersion Project are going into their fifth and fourth year, respectively. Whilst this may not seem like a long time, the University of Notre Dame, Australia ’s Sydney campus is only 10 years young and there is a commitment to see these programmes through. Another offshoot programme, to East Timor, was initiated in 2015, and they recently made their second trip. This programme, like the two others, were developed and initiated for the benefit of the host institution to ensure its congruency with the mission of service-learning at the university. The long-term sustainability of these programmes is of the utmost importance to both the host organization and community and the university.

In developing and initiating these international service-learning and other service-oriented programmes, and in light of criticism over global voluntourism and international programmes more broadly that only benefit the participants, the following recommendations are put forward:

  1. 1.

    All student participants in these outward mobility programmes should be prepared for the experience. Service-learning does not just happen; like all learning, students should be taught about the concepts, precepts, challenges, and benefits of service-learning for themselves and the host community. It would be remiss of educators to not make apparent some of the arguments about paternalism and postcolonialism when taking students on outward mobility programmes that purport to provide a “service” to the host community.

  2. 2.

    The purpose of participating in international service-learning or outward mobility programmes must be to provide a necessary service to the host organization or community that they cannot achieve on their own. If there are better ways for community goals to be achieved, these should be explored before Western institutions impose themselves upon hosts.

  3. 3.

    Students need to be made aware and reflect on their “Western-ness” and/or “white-ness” and their position of privilege in the world in which they live and realize how hosts may perceive them. As Illich mentioned, there is no common ground on which to meet those who experience poverty and/or discrimination, as we, from the participant institutions, have likely not experienced the same and can therefore not fully empathize with the host community. It is imperative that students participate in these experiences not to “help” or to “fix” situations, but rather, to serve in a way that the hosts see as useful to their context.

  4. 4.

    Self-aggrandizement is a big risk for students who participate in such programmes. Whilst preparing students for the experience is one aspect to help them better understand their place and quell feelings of self-importance, it is just as important to ensure post-experience learning and to provide a forum in which students can communicate and share their experiences.

  5. 5.

    There is a complexity of issues at stake when deciding to enter into a service-learning partnership, which requires rigorous academic research and analysis (Stanton et al., 1999). This type of analysis requires strong and lasting relationships to be built between the host communities and participants in these programmes such that deep and insightful research can take place to assess and evaluate the programme and its perceived benefits on both sides of the relationship.