Service learning, civic competencies and work-life skills

Abstract

Universities are expected to encourage the education of the active citizen, and thus provide students with the skills associated with civic competencies. In addition, students need to acquire working life skills to navigate their employment in increasingly boundary-less work cultures. This chapter evaluates the potential of service learning in fostering these skills in higher education. We provide a review of research literature on the topic and provide an example from one university course at the University of Helsinki in 2017. From this basis, the potential of service learning in fostering working life and civic skills is analysed and discussed.Contemporary society is increasingly facing global, multi-dimensional challenges such as climate change or the humanitarian crises and conflicts resulting in waves of migrants around the world. These challenges require an awareness of belonging to a common social and cultural space, and values that are directed towards constructive solutions instead of simplified, populist, or even violent processes. Such pro-social, democratic values, motivation, and engagement are in this article referred to as civic competencies. The Council of Europe has highlighted civic competencies as competencies, whereby individuals need to participate actively in a democratic context, and they also have adopted the 'framework of democratic citizenship' Competences for democratic culture, 2016). This framework contains a commitment to democratic legislation and human rights, respect towards cultural diversity and equality of all citizens as well as willingness to express one's own opinions and take other opinions into account. (Competences for democratic culture, 2016) Such civic values,

Connecting Postgraduate Students and Older Adults in the Community to Support Wellbeing: A Service-Learning Module During COVID-19 and Beyond

“…Students reflect on their learning engagement in a structured and supported way, both within and outside academia, by bringing together their personal, academic and civic experiences, to help foster collaborations within and outside their learning community. With the delivery of SIIL we wanted to support the development of students as "whole persons" who have not only acquired academic skills, but also social and interpersonal competences, offering them an opportunity to further engage as responsible, active and critical citizens (Nortomaa & Grönlund, 2019). SIIL was offered to students enrolled in the Mental Health Studies Master of Science at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London (Puntil et al, 2022).…”