Mutual relations and dialogue towards social justice : a critical case study of service-learning in China

Abstract

Under the broad umbrella of experiential education, service-learning connects students with real-world experience facilitating their understanding of identities, the meaning of “service,” and society. By encouraging ones’ actions and reflections on oneself, others and one’s role, service-learning aims to generate social transformation towards social justice. Whilst much of the service-learning literature has focused on students’ learning outcomes or community impact, mutual relations between the service-provider and the recipient have been less explored and theorised. According to philosophers Martin Buber and Mikhail Bakhtin, mutual relations indicate genuine interhuman mutuality, whereby dialogue and dialogic interaction can foster an understanding of the mutual constitution of self-other relations. Given the radical inequality between the service-provider and the recipient inherent in most service-learning programmes, particularly in terms of social class and socioeconomic status, it is challenging to develop authentic mutual relations. Also, when the charitable impact on the community is strongly emphasized in service-learning, power relations, privilege and oppression are often hidden, making social justice difficult to be advanced. As a former teacher involved in an urban-rural service-learning programme in mainland China, I retrospectively interrogated the 2019 programme, which linked a wealthy and well-resourced urban primary school in Beijing (City School) with an under-resourced rural primary school in a mountainous region (Hope School). Embedded imbalanced power relations and stereotypical assumptions challenged the relations between the two schools’ participants. In other words, this was a case study oriented to explore the nature of relationships in the programme and to what extent and how mutual relations were fostered or hindered. To challenge the dominant discourses and imbalanced power relations, a critical perspective was incorporated in the study. Data sources included archived documents from the 2019 programme, and semi-structured interviews with students and teachers in each school. Programme texts and teachers’ and students’ experiences and perceptions of self and other were discursively analysed to extend an understanding of the relationships between the two schools within the programme. Results showed that a charity discourse was situated in the programme structure, which favoured City School students’ learning and experience, whilst positioning rural school children as recipients of material and financial resources. The programme was shaped by discourses of poverty and rurality, and a deficit discourse of rural students shaped both school participants’ perceptions of identities while perpetuating stereotypical assumptions. However, some participants were aware of the contradiction between the realities and the discourses of rural communities, while others reflected on their urban and rural identities, challenging the dominant narratives about each other. The core activity of this servicelearning programme, English lessons taught by City School students to Hope School students, created a teacher-student hierarchy magnified by western English language teaching discourses, but it also generated data indicating that English lessons had the potential to bridge the relations between the two schools. This study contributes to service-learning research through a discourse analytic approach to unpack how charity discourses, urban-rural binaries, and imbalanced power relations are both constructed and maintained. This study also contributes to service-learning practices in China and proposes a critical-dialogic model of service-learning committed to fostering mutual relations in a justice-oriented programme. A refined programme structure underlining the two schools’ dialogic interaction and collaboration is proposed. In order to work towards social justice, a critical approach to service-learning is put forth which examines the nuanced complexities of identities and relationships as shaped by micro interactions and macro social forces. Therefore, the significance of mutual relations in achieving social justice is argued for, potentially contributing to theorising critical servicelearning.