Justice-Learning: Service-Learning as Justice-Oriented Education

Dan W. Butin, Cambridge College - Cambridge

Abstract

"Justice-learning" lies at the intersection of service-learning and social justice education. Specifically, I argue for a distinctive form of community-based learning ("antifoundational service-learning") that fosters a justice-oriented framework ("anti-anti-social justice") that makes possible the questioning and disruption of unexamined and all too often oppressive binaries of how we view the struggle toward equity in education. The linkage of service-learning and social justice education in this manner offers a "weak overcoming" that strengthens experiential learning toward justice while avoiding the dilution and radicalization faced by both movements. I, thus, trace the linkages between service-learning and social justice education; explicate the potential of antifoundational service-learning as a form of anti-antisocial justice; and draw out the potential and implication of this linkage for both service-learning and social justice education.