(Download) "Care Ethics, Service-Learning, And Social Change." by Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Care Ethics, Service-Learning, And Social Change.
- Author : Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning
- Release Date : January 22, 2003
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 220 KB
Description
Recent feminist disagreements about the role of service-learning in Women's Studies classes echo the care ethics controversies of the 1980s and 1990s. Both service-learning and care ethics have been criticized by feminist skeptics for being socially conservative. It is argued that advocates of service-learning and care ethics, by too readily embracing women's traditional caretaking roles and overlooking the power imbalances associated with these roles, encourage women to embrace their subordination, not their liberation. Feminist advocates, of both service-learning and care ethics, disagree with this analysis. Advocates of service-learning see an overlap between the aims and goals of Women's Studies classes and service-learning courses, both of which emphasize the relation between theory and practice. Care ethicists, for their part, argue that institutionalizing an ethic of care would promote feminist aims. Valuing and supporting caregivers and caregiving work would have tremendous impact on a host of social issues important to feminists, including women's status, poverty, and the raced/classed division of care's labor (Kittay, 1999; Tronto, 1993). Reviewing these debates may well leave feminist teachers perplexed. Does utilizing service-learning and care ethics in the classroom reinforce a self-sacrificial ethic of care already too prevalent in feminine gender training? Or can the two together create a unique opportunity for students to apply in-class gender study to better understand women's status in society? This paper will demonstrate that integrating service-learning and care ethics into our course, "Feminism and Families," provided a unique opportunity for students to bridge theory and practice, and provided students with the necessary tools for creating a political vision, grounded in actual experience, of a caring society.