Service-learning as a transformative practice in university pedagogy and its effects on students' well being

Abstract

Service-learning is a specific educational approach based on community service, which promotes academic learning but also the personal and social growth of students. Well known in in Higher Education, service-learning has a strong potential for transforming the University system at all levels (educational, organizational, cultural, and institutional). Particularly interesting is the relationship between service-learning and student well-being. While there is positive evidence regarding individual psychological well-being and comfort of experience, service-learning calls for decentralizing from “feeling good” to “doing good”, from balance to dynamism and imbalance towards the other. These tensions, which are also crucial for the acquisition of competence, show even more clearly the revolutionary message of service-learning which, truly understood, can really transform universities in a human-centered direction.