Sustainable Development Through Service Learning: A Pedagogical Framework and Case Example in a Third World Context

Because of changes in awareness, student values, and social responsibility, universities have an increasing interest in developing meaningful courses on sustainable community development and social enterprise. I suggest that the nature of these courses and the complexity of the issues are best addressed using a service-learning pedagogical approach. Two faculty members and eight students spent 1 month studying and experiencing poverty, malnutrition, education with dire lack of resources, and other social dilemmas and explored how one brings sustainable change, owned by the indigenous community. This case example of a business elective about sustainable community development in a third world country serves to illustrate the framework for delivering such content. The unique characteristics of sustainable community development are integrated with the strengths of service learning into a framework that may be used by others who might develop similar courses. Drawing on both literatures, the framework provides a powerful opportunity to experience the context in which development happens while learning the content.