Service-Learning as a Tool to Cultivate Democratically Minded Students: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

The field of public administration is intrinsically linked to a substantive experience of democracy and the development of a democratic community. This article employs John Dewey’s constructivist pedagogical approach to make the case that service-learning can be a vehicle to cultivate students’ understanding of democracy as a movement toward a common good. We use the term “real democracy” to describe the ways that substantive practices of Dewey’s communal democracy materialize in today’s public sector. We highlight the concerns “real democracy” presents for public administrators before arguing that Master of Public Administration (MPA) programs are a particularly suitable setting to cultivate Dewey’s constructivist approach to democratic education given that the spirit of the approach is already well-aligned with MPA core competencies. Finally, we present public administration educators with a democratic service-learning conceptual framework that ties together pedagogical goals, service-learning design and outcomes, and Dewey’s constructivist, democratic student experience.

CO‐DESIGN‐ing a morecontext‐based, pluralistic, and participatory future for public administration

“…Calls for more community‐engaged pedagogies in PA education are growing (Hung & McDougle, 2021) and access to tools and curricula to help implement them is more widely available than ever. For example, service‐learning can bring researchers and students together to identify problems and work together with a diverse group of stakeholders to develop solutions to actual problems faced by their communities (Godfrey et al, 2005; Gonzales et al, 2020; Lambright, 2018; Lambright & Lu, 2009; Lebovits & Bharath, 2019) while connecting students to one another and the communities they are embedded within.…”

Film in Public Administration Classrooms: Developing Responsible Administrators in the Information Age

“…Geographical boundaries are blurred, weakening institutional, state, and political boundaries as well as increasing the distance between citizens and public servants (Lebovits and Bharath, 2019). Foreign governments engineer election results through media hackers and their control of information (Peters, 2018) civic participation but also has the potential to spread fake news, hindering connections between government and its citizens, and increasing distrust (Lebovits and Bharath, 2019). Fake news is proliferated and rampantly disseminated through mainstream media (film, videos, movies, television, etc.)…”

“…Public administrators require skills to build trust with the communities they serve and "pursue fairness and to incorporate and value principles of democracy and public transparency within their decision-making process" (Haupt et al, 2017: 614). This entails capabilities beyond professional skill development to cultivate students into responsible administrators who are empowered to enact social change despite bureaucratic and political pronouncements (Lebovits and Bharath, 2019;Marshall, 2003).…”

Introduction to the Issue

“…Education has long been considered an important tool to adequately prepare future public servants to lead in complex environments. In the third Research Article of this issue, Lebovits and Bharath (2019) employ John Dewey's constructivist pedagogical approach to make the case that service-learning can be a vehicle to cultivate students' understanding of democracy as movement toward the common good. They use the term "real democracy" to describe the ways that substantive practices of Dewey's communal democracy materialize in today's public sector.…”