Centering Diverse Funds of Knowledge toward Reciprocally Beneficial Practices: Peer-Practitioners Engage in Collaborative Action Research to Design a Critical Service-Learning Framework for an Elementary School

Service-learning is defined and applied in myriad ways across the world. While the roots of this pedagogy lie in the well-intentioned acts of addressing unmet social needs and, in general, helping people, this has not always been the outcome of the interactions. In many cases, engaging in service-learning has led to harmful reproductions of post-colonialism dynamics, saviorism and disempowerment of the service recipients. Throughout the last decades, social and pedagogical movements such as multiculturalism, culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy, and social justice education have led to the evolution of service-learning, towards a more reciprocally beneficial practice among all service partners. At the heart of this evolving pedagogy is building authentic relationships that reveal funds of knowledge, practicing ongoing critical reflection, and engaging in reciprocally beneficial practices where both parties are co-constructing a project. In addition, this researcher believes in order to design a critically-minded, service-learning framework that fits a unique organizational context, the organization itself needs to apply those concepts in their design process. This researcher believes collaborative action research is the means that can align content concepts to the design process. While research exists on service-learning and on designing frameworks, research that explores the intersection of designing a critical service-learning framework on the developmental level of elementary aged students is very limited. This study was guided by the following research question: How do teachers design a reciprocally beneficial service-learning framework for an elementary school? Data for this research was gathered through peer-practitioners' (PP) reflections after every session, audio-recording of each session totaling 18 hours, and the PP exit interviews. The six PP met for six sessions, between October 2021 and February 2022. The analysis of the data resulted in the following six findings: (a) The role of andragogy; (b) the role of collaborative action research; (c) funds of knowledge; (d) leadership impact; (e) organizational context; and (f) environmental factors. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]