Critical Service Learning at a Commuter Campus in Rural Kentucky: A Path for Low-Income Youth to Persist and Combat Social Inequality?

How do students at commuter campuses—comprised largely of poor and working-class youth—experience critical service learning (SL) that addresses the injustices that many face in their everyday lives? What are the community... [ view full abstract ]

How do students at commuter campuses—comprised largely of poor and working-class youth—experience critical service learning (SL) that addresses the injustices that many face in their everyday lives? What are the community impacts, including the impacts on other marginalized youth, of a critical approach to SL? SL is a high impact practice key to college success and retention, but little is known about how it impacts the low-income youth most challenged to persist in higher education. Furthermore, few studies investigate the broader societal impacts of SL. The intervention that is investigated in this study, namely critical SL, builds on Stoecker’s (2017) “liberating” framework and aims for individual outcomes as well as progressive social change that benefits the marginalized communities from which students come. In this paper, we present the results of a retrospective, longitudinal study that investigates the impacts of a critical SL project that was implemented over five years, engaged six classes at a commuter campus of a rural Kentucky university, and partnered with community organizers and marginalized residents to change local policy to address housing injustice. The study employs an integrated, mixed-methods design. Data includes a survey of student experiences as related to persistence theory, focus groups based on a stratified purposeful sample of students most and least affected by the project, interviews with 20 community partners, field notes on the intervention, and student journals, assignments, and evaluations.