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This article explores the roots of the Canadian community service-learning (CSL) movement through a comparative discussion of service-learning in Canada and the United States. The article provides a brief overview of CSL’s historical foundations in both countries, addressing especially how differences in CSL funding infrastructure have distinctly shaped the movement in each country. While national funding bodies and nation-wide institutionalization remain central to CSL in the U.S., Canada’s CSL efforts have predominantly been shaped by the efforts of private foundations and grassroots community agents. This essay analyzes the obstacles and problems currently within Canadian CSL, but also provides recommendations around documentation, sustainability, and the future of CSL in Canada, including the recommendation to maintain a community first approach in Canadian CSL. As it considers how the influence of the United States continues to shape CSL in Canada, and how the two national movements remain distinct from one another, we hope this examination will contribute an historical perspective to scholarship on Canadian CSL and will offer entry points to engage in critical conversations on the emergence of the field.

This paper reports on a pilot project that involved the incorporation of Community Service-Learning (CSL) into a large Introductory Sociology class by drawing on the critical reflections of the six graduate student instructors and the primary instructor who taught the course. Graduate student instructors individually facilitated weekly seminars for about 30 undergraduate students, half of which participated in CSL, completing 20 hours of volunteer work with a local non-profit community organization. We discuss the benefits of incorporating CSL into a large Introductory Sociology class and speculate on the value of our particular course format for the professional development of graduate student instructors. A main finding was the critical importance to graduate students of formal and informal training and collaboration prior to and during the delivery of the course. Graduate students found useful exposure to CSL as pedagogical theory and practice, and appreciated the hands-on teaching experience. Challenges with this course structure include the difficulty of seamlessly incorporating CSL student experiences into the class, dealing with the “CSL”/ “non CSL” student division, and the nature of some of the CSL placements. We conclude by discussing possible methods for dealing with these challenges.