Whom does service learning really serve? Community-based organizations' perspectives on service learning

Why this paper matters

Centers organizational partners rather than treating them as passive beneficiaries.

Evidence reviewed

Design: In-depth interviews with community-based organizations
Full-text status: Indexed PDF/full text reviewed

Principal finding

Partners reported benefits and costs involving student conduct, fit, capacity, and coordination; net value was conditional.

EntrSL interpretation

This paper informs the design or evaluation of service-learning and experiential-learning work. Its findings should be interpreted within the reported design and context, not treated as universal or necessarily causal evidence.

Limitations and boundary conditions

Interview evidence is contextual and does not estimate comparative effects.

Scoring rationale

• EntrSL relevance: 5/5. Directness to service-learning, experiential learning, higher education, entrepreneurship, reflection, reciprocity, or institutional practice.
• Evidence quality: 4/5. Based on design transparency, sample or review breadth, analytical fit, and inferential limits.
• Journal standing is separate. OpenAlex two-year mean citedness and h-index are descriptive source metrics and do not increase this paper’s evidence score.

Citation

David D. Blouin; Evelyn M. Perry (2009). “Whom does service learning really serve? Community-based organizations’ perspectives on service learning.” Teaching Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055X0903700201