Service learning (ACE) has been described in The Journal of Social Justice as a great way to facilitate multicultural awareness for students who plan to promote social justice in their careers and vocations. Yet the literature on service-learning, though, has long presumed a white student body engaging “across difference” with communities of color.
The ACE office recognizes that the racial and ethnic identities of students can create vastly different ways of experiencing ACE, in both positive and negative ways.
ACE can positively provide an opportunity to gain experience in promoting social justice and advocating social action while you are still in college. For instance, any research studies have shown that BIPOC and multicultural students have deep motivation in giving back to their own communities and bring tremendous lived experience to social action work. However, as a negative instance, some research in the field that has demonstrated that when white students are not adequately prepared to work with communities of color, they can reinforce stereotypes and cause harm through micro and macroaggressions.
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