Student volunteering and the active community: issues and opportunities for teaching and learning in sociology

Abstract

Student volunteering is currently being promoted through the Higher Education Active Community Fund, which runs to August 2004 and may be extended further. This development of higher education’s ‘third mission’ has strong links with the government’s agenda for citizenship and the active community. This initiative appears to have taken little account of debates concerning both the ideological bases of volunteering, in particular the contested nature of citizenship and social capital, and the practicalities of students volunteering. In an increasingly instrumental climate for higher education this represents a possible strategic flaw. The merits of integrating volunteering activity into the curriculum are discussed through comparison with service-learning in the USA, and illustrations of present practice from a number of UK universities. In conclusion, a case is made for more open and widespread dialogues between higher education institutions, the voluntary sector and policy-makers in exploring service-learning and its role in the curriculum and the community. Contributor details David Hall is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Sociology and teaches and researches in the area of applied social research, volunteering and the voluntary sector, and learning and teaching in sociology. Together with Irene Hall, he is active in community-based learning and is programme director of the M.Sc. in Applied Social and Community Research. He is a partner in two European Framework 5 research programmes on science shops and university-community partnerships for knowledge transfer, and is the Chair of Interchange, the Liverpool science shop equivalent.