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Service Learning Outside the U.S.: Initial Experiences in Singapore's Higher Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 June 2009

Kenneth Paul Tan
Kenneth Paul Tan
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
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Abstract

Service learning in higher education is an American creature. But outside the U.S., practices that resemble American service learning or that have begun self-consciously to describe themselves as “service learning” may also be found. This article gives an account of a proto-service-learning course on civil society in Singapore and discusses some similarities and differences between the U.S. and Singapore contexts in which the practices of service learning have evolved, identifying how this civil society course in particular was both a product of as well as a challenge to Singapore's somewhat different priorities in higher education, political culture, and attitudes to social justice and cultural diversity.

Type
The Teacher
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , July 2009 , pp. 549 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 2009

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