Embedding engaged education through community service learning in HEI: a review

Tijsma, Geertje; Urias, Eduardo; Zweekhorst, Marjolein

doi:10.1080/00131881.2023.2181202

Cited by 4 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…In expanding their core missions and visions toward contributing to social, economic, and cultural development, such institutes should be aware of the tensions experienced by individual practitioners and consider ways of dealing with, or catering for, them. At times of increasing discussions of the institutionalization of engaged research and engaged educational practices (Compagnucci and Spigarelli, 2020;Aramburuzabala and Cerrillo, 2023;Tijsma et al, 2023), it is important for (H)EIs to have a clearer vision of the material expression of the engaged practices they seek to institutionalize. This is essential for them to build the necessary institutional coherence that can steer and influence the individual actions, and associated roles, toward the desired vision (Fuenfschilling and Truffer, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unraveling institutional complexity in engaged education practices: rationales, responses, and roles of individual practitioners

Tijsma,

Demeijer,

Zweekhorst

et al. 2024

Front. Educ.

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Despite the growing trend to integrate engaged education activities in (Higher) Education Institutions ((H)EIs), their adoption responds to diverse and often conflicting rationales. These rationales are shaped by institutional logics at both the field and organizational level, and their conflicting nature is a manifestation of the institutional complexity that arises when organizations and the individuals within them are confronted with divergent prescriptions from multiple institutional logics. This study examines how engaged practitioners in (H)EIs experience institutional complexity and how they respond to such complexities. We conducted research at the intersection of field-level and organizational-level logics, and individual responses. Our findings show that engaged practitioners who initiate engaged education that follows the principles of the dominant market and corporate logics do not experience institutional complexity, and we therefore refer to them as compliers. Conversely, those whose intentionality follow the minority state logic take different roles in their response to the underlying institutional complexity. Those roles may refer to the adherence to multiple conflicting logics while keeping them apart (compartmentalizers), the (selective) combination of elements of dominant and minority logics (combiners), or the (partial) rejection of the dominant logic to protect the minority logic (protectors). The implications of our study offer valuable insights into the change process in (H)EIs concerning the integration of engaged educational processes and activities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unraveling institutional complexity in engaged education practices: rationales, responses, and roles of individual practitioners

Tijsma,

Demeijer,

Zweekhorst

et al. 2024

Front. Educ.

Self Cite

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“…The future challenges that must be faced in the institutionalization of service learning with the aim of promoting sustainable development include [41,43,46]:…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Service-learning is the necessary response to highereducation institutions, which too frequently remain oblivious to social needs. Its implementation and institutionalization make it possible to respond to the real challenges of society, overcoming the elitism of merely theoretical approaches that lack practical applications [41,43]. It allows students to link academic learning with the needs of communities, thereby fostering civic engagement, promoting sustainable development [37,38,44,45], and transcending the walls of the classroom, with benefits for both students and communities [38,46,47].…”

Section: Service-learning An Optimal Tool For Education For Sustainab...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Higher education is responding to these challenges in a variety of ways: by prioritizing sustainability practices on campus, supporting research related to more socially engaged sustainability [13], increasing intentional and frequent engagement with sustainability issues by non-academic partners [17], and adapting curricula and pedagogical approaches to integrate sustainability into teaching [5,17,23,26,34]. As universities begin to engage with sustainable development and the needs of local and global communities, the importance of using new approaches, such as service-learning, to guide these endeavors becomes apparent [37][38][39][40][41]. Below, the literature on service-learning with regards to achieving sustainability is reviewed.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Service-Learning as an Approach to Educating for Sustainable Development

Higuera

Martín

2023

Sustainability

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Higher education has an essential role in the promotion of sustainable development. For this to be possible, the use of methodologies in accordance with principles of sustainability must be fostered. This article theoretically analyzes the characteristics that make service-learning an effective tool in education for sustainable development. In order to understand the challenges involved in its implementation in higher education, first of all, the concepts of sustainable development and sustainability are defined. Next, the use of education for sustainable development and curricular sustainability in higher education is contextualized. Finally, the pedagogical proposal of service-learning is addressed and linked to the principles of sustainability in the university environment. To conclude, in relation to prospective applications of service-learning, it is argued that it is an optimal methodology to educate about, for, and from sustainability and that its institutionalization in higher education is highly desirable.

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“…As stimulating competence development via such Labs would be one strategy, further research is needed into other effective (combinations of) strategies for the design and institutionalisation of transformative research approaches in higher education settings, which refer to both universities and universities of applied sciences (Tijsma et al, 2023).…”

Section: Competence Development Among Students and Professionalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From talking the talk to walking the walk

den Boer

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Stimulating the transformation towards more sustainable, healthy, and just food systems is an urgent challenge. However, this is also a highly difficult challenge, since food systems are complex systems that are resistant to change. The type of research that explicitly aims to facilitate systemic change, called transformative research, has the potential to accelerate sustainable food system transformation. Such research is characterised by knowledge co-creation, experimentation, and learning and reflexivity among a variety of different actors. However, to date, transformative research is scarce in practice. With this thesis we aim to contribute to an increased insight into how we can better understand and enhance the transformative capacity of research, so that it can act as a catalyst for sustainable food system transformation. To this end, we performed six studies that followed an emergent design and were conducted in the context of the European Union project FIT4FOOD2030 (2017–2020). With the first two studies, we aim to increase our understanding of research as a catalyst for food system transformation. We argue that in order to scale up transformative research, we need to transform the systems in which knowledge is produced and used, which we refer to as Research & Innovation (R&I) systems. Just as food systems, R&I systems can be best viewed as complex systems that are resistant to change. We introduce the FIT4FOOD2030 project as an example of a multi-level boundary innovation that aims to trigger the transformation of food systems and their coupled R&I systems. In the last four studies of this thesis, we zoom in on two capacity building strategies that we consider key for supporting such a coupled systems transformation, namely: competence development and network building. Our findings show that transformative research approaches require different competences among a variety of actors, transformative researchers in particular, which, we argue, need to be seen in relation to envisioned actor roles. Examples of important actor roles are that of change agent, knowledge broker, and reflexive facilitator. Higher education institutes have an essential role to play in stimulating such competence development among (future) professionals by institutionalising transformative research approaches. This requires the development of novel educational programmes that more strongly connect to regional food networks, such as Food Policy Networks (FPNs), development of support mechanisms for teachers and researchers, and a structural integration of training and learning activities within transformative projects such as FIT4FOOD2030. R&I policy innovation is essential to create an enabling environment for transformative research approaches, such as Real-world Labs, and to stimulate portfolios of transformative projects so that projects can effectively build upon each other over longer periods of time. Based on our findings, we propose future research into 1) effective (combinations of) strategies for competence development among (future) professionals, referring to research into the institutionalisation of transformative research approaches in higher education institutes as well as research into the dynamics of translocal learning processes among professionals engaged in transformative projects, 2) effective strategies for competence development among children, 3) the functioning of and dynamics within transformative research formats, such as Real-world Labs, 4) the current state of food systems research, referring to the need for quantitative studies to investigate whether, and to what extent, a trend is visible towards transformative research for food system transformation, and finally, 5) the institutionalisation of transformative innovations as well as the deliberate destabilisation of unsustainable cultures structures and practices in both food systems and R&I systems.

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Embedding engaged education through community service learning in HEI: a review

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

Unraveling institutional complexity in engaged education practices: rationales, responses, and roles of individual practitioners

Unraveling institutional complexity in engaged education practices: rationales, responses, and roles of individual practitioners

Service-Learning as an Approach to Educating for Sustainable Development

From talking the talk to walking the walk

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