Chronicling a Faculty of Education's journey into community engagement through service learning

Abstract

This article describes and presents the communal story of three lecturers involved in the genesis and development of a multi-tiered service and support system instituted by the Faculty of Education in Johannesburg in conjunction with eight partner schools and a community organisation. The multi-tiered system comprises of pre-service teacher education students, B Ed (Hons) school counselors and M Ed Educational Psychology students. We describe the genesis of the system by first providing a contextual overview against the backdrop of a framework of social justice and care in the Faculty of Education and argue that as an academic enterprise the community engagement initiative contributes to a greater integration of theory and practice. We also posit that this integration, partly based on Bernstein's notion of an integrated curriculum, which is framed in a particular manner, leads to curriculum innovation in all the modules and also includes a revision of roles and power relationships generally assigned to le...