Service-Learning from the Perspective of Community Organizations

As a central construct in the theory of service-learning, reciprocity for community partners is not often the subject of scholarship, especially scholarship that seeks to understand the benefits and opportunity costs of service-learning. This article explores how reciprocity works in higher education service-learning from the perspective of community partners. Through interviews, the study asked 24 community partners of a Midwestern private, not-for-profit university about their perspective of service-learning. The qualitative study used constructivist grounded theory to gain insight into the experiences of community partners.