When Volunteering Is Mandatory: A Call for Research about Service Learning

Stakeholders have long been concerned about high school drop-out rates and associated achievement gaps between groups, specifically racial, of high school students. While significant improvements have been made to these drop-out rates at the national level, the largest group of drop-out students continues to be those of Hispanic heritage. Research indicates nearly 28% of high school drop-outs make those decisions in the ninth or tenth grade and may do so as a result of already being behind in meeting graduation requirements. Including community service as part of high school graduation rates is the current trend. The purpose of the discussion in this article is to gain an understanding of the history, goals, implementation, and outcomes of student service learning (SSL) relational to curriculum equity. Self-determination theory and critical theory were used in the theoretical framework.