Faculty Perspective
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Kathy Jamieson, PhD
ESS 330 Sociocultural Analyses of Sport and Exercise
Rationale for Community-based Learning
Despite the efforts of many community service organizations, communities remain underserved in terms of opportunities for sport, physical activity and health related programs. School districts often suffer under inequitable tax-based financial support. After school programs for youth often become safe havens and socializing agents for youth who have no parent in the home due to the need for dual family incomes, or due to the increasing reality of single parent households. Whatever the specific social conditions faced by individual youth, community serving organizations strive to contribute to the safe, healthy, and productive development of all youth. Sport and physical activity are often significant aspects of a total program for social development. Incorporating community service into university courses gives students opportunities to learn first hand about the problems and hopes of local residents, and to consider these in the light of the current and changing social conditions of race, ethnicity, income, gender, and age.Students assist in the planning, delivery and evaluation of a variety of physical activity programs throughout the local community. Throughout each academic year, ESS 330 students contribute nearly 1200 hours of community service. Evaluations of the service learning experience indicate that students are skeptical and worried about time commitments at first, but the majority report that the experience enhanced their understanding of sociological concepts, offered insight to their own career paths, and promoted a commitment to civic engagement.
As a faculty member...
Kathy cannot imagine teaching without the experiential aspect she has integrated into her curriculum. She writes:Service-Learning is an example of intentional pedagogy. It is my intention to give the course back to the students through the service they choose, allowing them to be intentional about the populations they will serve throughout the semester. I want the students to be in touch with why they want to be here. Connecting our field of the sociocultural analyses of sport to real life experience transports them beyond a mere focus on the study of how the body works. It offers them opportunities to recognize and grapple with inequalities, foster dialogue across differences, and consciously imagine ways to advance change toward justice as full access to equal rights and opportunities.