Editing Service-learning (section)

==Critiques==
Service-learning has been the subject of debate throughout its history. It has been criticized for not generating useful skills, nor meaningful cultural or community knowledge,<ref name=":13" /> nor doing much for the community itself,<ref name=":13" /><ref name="Eby">{{Citation |last=Eby |first=John |title=Why Service Learning is Bad |date=1998 |url=https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=slceslgen}}</ref> and instead mostly inculcating communitarian political ideologies in students<ref>{{cite journal |last=Egger |first=John |year=2008 |title=No Service to Learning: 'Service-Learning' Reappraised |url=http://ncsce.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/NoToServiceLearning_000.pdf |journal=Academic Questions |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=183–194 |doi=10.1007/s12129-008-9057-7 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |s2cid=59038318}}</ref> and focusing on the student's "good deeds”.<ref name="Eby" /> Without deeper critical reflection the effect may be to maintain, rather than subvert, systems of community oppression.<ref name=":13" /> "Critical service-learning" claims to address some of these issues (see Applications & Contexts, above).  

It has also been described as "a utopian vision".<ref name="Sigmon1979" />{{rp|11}} University policies that mandate service learning have been criticized as the imposition of intellectual conformity by means of identifying specific types of civic engagement as worthy community service and thus prescribing social and political perspectives, contrary to the ideal of the university as a site for the pursuit of truth through the free exchange of ideas.<ref>{{cite web |author=[[Carl L. Bankston]] III |date=31 May 2016 |title=Modern Orthodoxies |url=http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2537}}</ref>

The relationship between community and academy is an area of general critique. Communication with faculty is often inconsistent, so community organizations do not always understand their roles and the roles of the faculty in students' service projects.<ref name="Tryon" />{{rp|55–56}} Some organizations' representatives have stated that faculty assigned students projects that were not allowed in their organization.<ref name="Sandy 2006" /> And the small number of hours students are required to spend volunteering can cause problems for community organizations and their clients.<ref name="Sandy 2006" /><ref name="Tryon" /> Even research about service-learning is mostly done by scholars rather than community locals and organizations.<ref name="Eby" />