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Service-Learning in Parenting Education
Abstract
The field of family studies is particularly suited to service-learning, but one area that has not received much attention in this regard is that of parenting education. This article highlights a series of parenting education workshops that were incorporated into a parent-child relationships course, utilizing a developmental assets framework. Student reflections and parent evaluations are used to consider the extent to which the service-learning activity enabled students to apply course content to real-world experiences, view themselves as emerging professionals, and have a positive impact on the community. Implications for continuing or replicating similar service learning experiences are included.
... Previous research on social outcomes has found that service learning had a favorable effect on students'' multicultural competencies and community involvement (Root, S., J., et al., 2002; Moely, B. E., et al., 2002). Also service-learning helps prepare students for their future careers including leadership skills (Astin, A. W. et al., 2001), communication skills, professional growth (Sedlak, C. A., et al., 2003) and confidence to proceed with their chosen careers (Walker, K. et al., 2003). Additionally Service-learning is viewed as a process that will alert students to recognize dominant groups and values in our society (Carrington, S., & Selva, G., 2010). ...
In this research I aimed to gain a better understanding of lifelong learning competencies of students who have taken a educational service-learning assignment as part of the requirements for pre-service teacher course. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether or not educational service-learning affects pre-service teacher's professionalism, self-efficacy, desire for lifelong learning and social empowerment. For this I conducted multiple regression analysis using SPSS Ver. 18.0. Pre-service teachers from Gyeongsangbuk-do area, Korea served as the sample for this study. Independent variables are sex, income, GPA, degree of ESL participation, need of educational service learning, motivation of educational service learning. Based on multiple regression analysis, participation of service-learning and need of educational service learning revealed to have positive effects on pre-service teacher's teacher professionalism, self-efficacy, desire for lifelong learning, and social empowerment.
We documented what parents report as the cause of their child’s academic and conduct setbacks and what they say they do in response. We recruited an opportunity sample of 479 parents and narrowed our sample to parents of children without disabilities between the ages of 5–18 (N = 312). Parents responded to open-ended questions, and we coded responses into categories of disciplinary tactics and types of attributions. Parents who reported experience with child setbacks significantly differed from parents who did not report such experience on several outcome variables. Parents did not exhibit hedonic biasing such that most reported causes of setbacks were controllable by the child; reported controllable causes correlated with the reported use of punishment. Our findings suggest that parental behavior change efforts must also address parents’ attributions, or verbal explanations, of causes of events. We discuss implications of our findings for child and parent researchers, educators, and practitioners.
The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the personal, professional, interpersonal, social, and academic development of students who complete a 15-hour service-learning assignment as part of the requirements for a family diversity course. A content analysis of 36 students' reflection papers revealed that service-learning was extremely beneficial, even when the experience was brief. Numerous valuable lessons were learned by the students about themselves and their future careers. Specifically, they became more accepting of others, and they realized the importance of service to one's community. In addition, they were able to process and synthesize the information they learned in the classroom by experiencing the course content in a real-world setting.
Incorporating experiential, community-based assignments into the family studies and gerontological classroom curriculum prepares graduates for the workplace and active, responsible citizenship. The ongoing challenge, however, is to create appropriate, effective means of integrating classroom and community while maintaining pedagogical and civic integrity. This paper explores ways in which classroom and community have been paired in the family studies and gerontology curricula, including service-learning, internships, site visits, guest speakers, advocacy opportunities, and policy analyses. Illustrations from family studies and gerontology programs at two institutions are presented with the goals of offering an understanding of a range of community integration options and providing readers with techniques and tools to facilitate these various options. Additionally, some of the broader implications of connecting classroom and community for students in family studies and gerontology are discussed.
Purpose
To examine the effects of 10 youth developmental assets on adolescent tobacco use.
Design
Survey of a randomly selected sample using in-home interviewing methodology.
Setting
Inner-city areas of two midsized Midwestern cities.
Subjects
The researchers studied 1,350 teen-parent pairs.
Measures
Demographic information, adolescent self-reported tobacco use, eight developmental asset Likert scales, and two one-item developmental asset measures.
Results
The response rate was 51%. Logistic regression results indicate that youth who possess nine of 10 developmental assets examined are significantly less likely to report tobacco use than youth with low levels of assets. Adjusting for youth age, race, gender, parental income and education, and family structure, significant odds ratios include the following: nonparental adult role model, 2.09 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.45, 3.02); peer role models, 2.48 (95% CI = 1.87, 3.29); family communication, 1.73 (95% CI = 1.29, 2.31); use of time (organized groups), 1.77 (95% CI = 1.28, 2.44); use of time (religion), 2.49 (95% CI = 1.86, 3.33); good health practices (exercise/nutrition), 1.61 (95% CI = 1.21, 2.14); community involvement, 1.66 (95% CI = 1.07, 2.58); future aspirations, 2.06 (95% CI = 1.42, 2.99); and responsible choices, 2.21 (95% CI = 1.55, 3.15).
Conclusions
The findings of this study support the view that certain developmental assets may serve to protect youth from risk-taking behaviors, particularly tobacco use. Limitations include cross-sectional data and three scales with alphas below .7.
This paper presents a model to guide capacity-building in state public education systems for delivery of evidence-based family and youth interventions-interventions that are designed to bolster youth competencies, learning, and positive development overall. Central to this effort is a linking capacity agents framework that builds upon longstanding state public education infrastructures, and a partnership model called PROSPER or PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience. The paper presents an overview of the evolving partnership model and summarizes positive results of its implementation over a 12-year period in an ongoing project.
Service-learning courses provide a unique opportunity for students to relate course material to experiences at the service-learning site. Research has identified benefits for the students that include greater civic mindedness, improved self-esteem, and improved attitudes towards members of the group with whom they interact through service-learning. Key to achievement of these benefits is the opportunity for students to interact with the clients they are serving and from whom they are learning. Service-learning students in gerontology courses find themselves interacting with a diverse older adult population that may include poor or wealthy, physically healthy or frail, socially integrated or isolated, and cognitively intact elders or elders with dementia. These students sometimes find relating to and conversing with older adults at their service-learning site challenging, particularly when the elders have dementia. The present paper describes a project designed to facilitate service-learning students' relationships with older adult participants at an adult day service program caring primarily for persons with dementia. The Social History Project involved scrapbook activities designed to increase knowledge of the elders, which students could then incorporate into their conversations with the older adults. Students' knowledge of and comfort in working with elders increased over the course of the project. Recommendations for continuing this project or modifying it for other dementia care programs are provided.
Schools can be instalments of social change when they adopt a curriculum that intimately joins didactic instruction and experiential learning, otherwise known as service-learning (Boyer, 1997; Bringle & Kremer, 1993; Myers-Lipton, 1996). As a type of “scholarship of engagement” (Boyer, 1997), service-learning is a methodology which enables family educators to incorporate community service opportunities into established family science curriculum. Having received support from an intergenerational service-learning grant from the Association of Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) and the University of Pittsburgh's Generation's Together (GT), we will describe the way in which service-learning was integrated into an existing aging course. This class helps our students to meet the human development content area requirement for the National Council on Family Relation's (NCFR) Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) program. More specifically, we will provide a description of the Elder Service Partnership Project, delineate the educational objectives of the experience, and offer a critique of the partnership based on feedback provided by both undergraduates and elders. Benefits of the experience to both students and elders will be highlighted, as well as suggestions for improving the overall experience.
Family Science, by its very nature, invites the use of creative strategies for teaching and learning to aid students in developing a comprehensive understanding of concepts and theories. However, many students want to learn not only basic facts but also how the concepts of Family Science impact their own experience and the society in which they live. Service-learning is an effective strategy for increasing this kind of holistic student learning. This paper provides abroad overview of service-learning that sets a frame for the articles which follow in this issue by defining various models of service-learning and identifying principles of good practice. The articles included in this issue provide a rich resource of theory and practice for practitioners of service-learning in Family Science.
Two courses in the field of child and family development are used to exemplify the impact of community-based service-learning on student outcomes. The courses, Developmental Dysfunction and Divorce and Remarriage, are structurally described from course conception to evaluation following five processes: establishing partnership, crafting service goals, instituting students' support mechanisms, designing an integrative curriculum, and creating assessment measures. Students' outcomes were presented using grade average comparison, students' testimony, and reflections. Students who participated in a community-based service-learning course scored higher than students in other classes. They also indicated gains in knowledge, interpersonal skills, civic responsibility, caring, and career and personal growth. Community partners outcomes were assessed based on attrition rate, partners' recruitment of others, continued interest, and written feedback.
Preservice teachers have few opportunities to work directly with parents prior to classroom teaching. This experiment allows seniors pursuing early childhood certification to gain experience working with parents of young children.
This exploratory study attempts to answer the question: can a required service-learning experience of limited intensity and duration have an impact on the development of college students as participating citizens of their community? Students who provided community service as part of a one credit "community service laboratory" showed a significant increase in their belief that people can make a different, that they should be involved in community service and particularly in leadership and political influence, and in their commitment to perform volunteer service the following semester. They also became less likely to blame social service clients for their misfortunes and more likely to stress a need for equal opportunity. They indicated that their experience had led them to more positive perceptions of the people they worked with.
To study associations between binge/purge and weight loss behaviors and "developmental assets" among adolescent girls and boys.
The Search Institute's Profile of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors self-report questionnaire was administered to 48,264 girls and 47,131 boys in grades 6 through 12 at schools in 213 cities or towns across the United States. The 156-item questionnaire measured 40 "developmental assets," or protective factors associated with successful adolescent development. Developmental assets were examined using multiple logistic regression among students who reported binge/purge behaviors, weight loss behavior, both, or neither.
Developmental assets related to positive identity were the strongest discriminators of binge/purge and weight loss behaviors in both girls and boys. Girls who reported binge/purge and weight loss behaviors were about half as likely to report feeling a sense of purpose [odds ratio (OR) = 0.45, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.40, 0.50] and high self-esteem (OR = 0.55, 95% CI = 0.49, 0.61), compared with girls not reporting either of these behaviors. Among boys the ORs were: sense of purpose OR = 0.53 (95% CI = 0.46, 0.61) and self-esteem OR = 0.76 (95% CI = 0.65, 0.88). Assets related to values about abstinence from alcohol, drugs, or sex ("restraint") were also significant correlates. Girls and boys who reported these values were less likely to report binge/purge and weight loss behaviors, compared with those who did not report these values (girls: OR = 0.56, 95% CI = 0.50, 0.63; boys: OR = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.70, 0.97).
Internal assets such as self-esteem, sense of purpose, and values related to abstinence from alcohol and sex appear to be protective against unhealthy eating behaviors and may reflect a general resilience that buffers against a broad range of health risk behaviors.
To assess whether developmental assets and risk-taking behaviors, as measured by the Search Institute instrument, were related to attempted suicide in African American, inner-city youth.
Survey of 336 African American, inner-city youths.
Significant odds ratios were found for 4 asset questions and for 11 risk-taking behavior questions by attempted suicide behavior. The odds ratios ranged from 2.4 to 6.4 in magnitude. The percent of variation in suicide-attempt behavior explained by the asset questions (14.6% and 19.6%) was explained by the risk-taking behavior/high-risk behavior pattern questions.
The risk-taking behavior items were better predictors of suicide behavior than were the developmental asset items for the African American youth.