When class, language, and cultural differences abound between community residents and universities, it is particularly important for service-learning coordinators to take a step back from “helping” and work toward “understanding” through community-based research. Through an in-depth discussion of the evolution of this project and our successes and failures doing service learning for the past six years in rural Nicaragua, we argue that research is an essential component of any international service–learning partnership not only for much needed assessment purposes but also for its relationship building potential both inside and outside of the host community.
AustinDiane E.2010. “Confronting Environmental Challenges on the US–Mexico Border: Long-term Community-based Research and Community Service Learning in an International Partnership.”Journal of Community Practice18:361–95.
2.
ButinDan W.2007. “Justice-learning: Service-learning as Justice-oriented Education.”Equity and Excellence in Education40:1–7.
3.
ChuppMark G.JosephMark L.. 2010. “Getting the Most Out of Service Learning: Maximizing Student, University and Community Impact.”Journal of Community Practice18:190–212.
4.
DenzinNorman K.1978. The Research Act. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw Hill.
5.
DoerrE.2011. “Cognitive Dissonance in International Service-learning: Possibilities and Challenges for Service-learning Pedagogy.” Pp. 71–93 in Critical Service Learning as Revolutionary Pedagogy: A Project of Student Agency in Action, edited by PorfilioB. J.HickmanH.. New York: Information Age Publishing.
6.
KielyRichard. 2004. “A Chameleon with a Complex: Searching for Transformation in International Service Learning.”Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning10:5–20.
7.
MarchettiPeter. 1985. El Movimiento Campesino de Matiguás: Formas Organizativa y la Linea de Masas en la RPS. Managua: Nitlapan.
8.
MarulloSamMoayediRoxannaCookeDeanna. 2009. “C. Wright Mills’s Friendly Critique of Service Learning and an Innovative Response: Cross-institutional Collaborations for Community-based Research.”Teaching Sociology37:61–75.
9.
SmithHerman W.1975. Strategies of Social Research: The Methodological Imagination. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
10.
SoskaTracy M.Sullivan-CosettiMarilynPasupuletiSudershan. 2010. “Service Learning: Community Engagement and Partnership for Integrating Teaching, Research, and Service.”Journal of Community Practice18:139–47.
11.
SwordsAlicia C. S.KielyRichard. 2010. “Beyond Pedagogy: Service Learning as Movement Building in Higher Education.”Journal of Community Practice18:148–70.
12.
TakahashiArthur. 2012. “The Sandinista Revolutions and the Contra War in Matiguás: How the Struggle for Neutrality Affected Peasants in the Mountains of Nicaragua’s Liberal Bastion.”Unpublished master’s thesis, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC.
13.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics. 2010. Country Profiles: Nicaragua. Montreal, Canada: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Retrieved January 21, 2012 (http://www.uis.unesco.org).
