International service learning (ISL) is an emerging area of international education.  This paper summarizes scholarly journal articles on ISL programs, organized by academic disciplines and service-learning project areas.  Who administers ISL programs and how, the countries in which these projects have occurred, and the outcomes and benefits of the projects discussed in this literature is presented.  Relevant literature on “International Service Learning” from full-text scholarly peer-reviewed journals on 67 EBSCO Host databases published from 2000 to 2013 served as the basis for this literature review.  No returns were found in this search before the year 2000.  Of 96 returns, 41 of them, published from 2003 to 2013, were relevant for this review.

While there has been an increase in education abroad in China due to China’s rise as an economic, political, military and cultural power, there haven’t been a tremendous number of peer-reviewed articles published in scholarly journals on education abroad programs in China.  This paper presents a review of information from peer-reviewed scholarly journals on the types of education abroad programs students, professors and administrators go on in China, organized in a taxonomy, and the outcomes and benefits of these programs that are stated in these sources.  The benefits and outcomes of education abroad in China culled from this literature review are matched to the list of ten main outcomes of study abroad programs presented by Parsons (2010).  In addition, a list of other outcomes not listed by Parsons (2010) that were identified and categorized through this literature review is presented.