Service-learning as a higher education pedagogy for advancing citizenship, conscientization and civic agency: a capability informed view

ABSTRACT

Universities are criticised for overemphasising instrumental values. Instrumental values are important but universities risks undermining cultivation of humanity, critical consciousness and civic agency. Service-learning (SL) is practice that moves teaching and learning beyond the focus on technical skills and instrumental outcomes. Nonetheless, little is known about this role of SL in African and particularly South Africa context. Using a capability approach (CA) as developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, the article explores the contribution of SL in fostering students’ capabilities for citizenship, conscientization and civic agency. The findings indicate that through SL processes and activities, students develop citizenship capabilities of affiliation and narrative imagination, informed vision, social and collective struggle, and local citizenship but often not in the way the university intended. The paper contributes to the understanding of how SL can expand the conception of teaching and learning and fosters critical social values in the global South context.

KEYWORDS:

• Universities
• critical consciousness
• citizenship
• civic agency
• service-learning
• capability approach

Introduction

In his address during the 2019 first conference organised by Universities South Africa (USAf), Professor Wim de Villiers, Stellenbosch University’s vice-chancellor posed a number of questions about university education (Macupe, 2019). Professor de Villiers asked ‘Does a university education guarantee good employment? Are they not too expensive? Why does everyone go to university if the world’s best professors are sharing their knowledge online for free? And are universities not too elitist and exclusive? These questions epitomise two competing views regarding the kind and purposes of teaching and learning that take place in the contemporary universities. The first view involves teaching and learning aimed at enabling students to acquire transferable skills and competence that employers require. This perspective is largely framed within the demand for measurable outcomes and acquisition of skills that improve employability, job prospect and neoliberal conception of higher education as private good (Peacock & Bacon, 2018). In the context of the journal Higher Education Pedagogies, this view is seen in all of the most read and most cited articles a case in point is that of Foster and Yaoyuneyong (2016) on Teaching innovation: equipping students to overcome real-world challenges. Drawing from Afrikaans linguistic context of the higher education system, we have named this view as the pedagogiek van die bemarkbare (pedagogy of the marketable).

Table 1. Dimensions of experiential learning

Dimension	Key tenets	Practical expressions
Progressive	Focuses on individual responsibility towards their society View education as a problem-solving instrument of social and political reform	SL enabling students to develop awareness and obligation for society SL allowing students to learn and develop capacities to solve complex societal issues
Humanistic	Learners centred discovery and self-actualisation Personal enrichment, integration and psychological development	SL fostering students’ socialisation, being and becoming SL cultivating students’ valued ends
Radical	Focuses on societal and individual liberation Acting for transformation	SL enabling students’ freedoms to choose and act meaningfully SL allowing student to act and bring about change for themselves and others

Table 2. A summary of students’ profile and SL activities

Participants	Discipline/Field	Race	Gender	Description of activities
48 Students	Nursing first year	7 Black African 3 White 2 Coloured	2 Male 10 Female	Students worked in poor rural community conducting household survey focused on community-nursing and family study. Also, students worked with their assigned family on toy-making, gardening and knitting
	Social Work third year	6 Black African 3 White 3 Coloured	4 Male 8 Female	Third-year social work students use questionnaires to conduct a situation analysis in communities. Students worked with community partners on a variety of projects, including: a vegetable gardening at an old age home, bullying at two different primary schools, drug abuse at a high school, a church based project focused on women working on the street, and a project seeking to address health and safety of children in primary schools
	Humanities (BSocSc) third year, group 1	6 Black African 3 White 3 Coloured	6 Male 6 Female	Final-year Bachelor of Social Sciences students worked with nine underserved primary schools. Themes dealt with at the school included drug abuse, bullying, study skills (motivation), and child development. A range of activities including workshops, role play, creation of posters and group discussions were undertaken
	Humanities (BSocSc) third year, group 2	7 Black African 4 Coloured 1 White	4 Male 8 Female

The second perspective is that which defines university education in terms of the enrichment of human life beyond the accumulation of good grades for a good job (Cachia, Lynam, & Stock, 2018) and learning gain¹ that is qualitative in nature and scope (Evans, Kandiko Howson, & Forsythe, 2018). The articles such as the one by Bourne et al. (2018) on strategies for empowering students in the ‘real world’, although in a snapshot begins to demonstrate this second view. We refer to this view as the pedagogiek van plig (pedagogy of civic duty).

This article is therefore concerned with the argument that ‘some values are more generally accepted in the mainstream as normal or important and will, therefore, obtain higher evaluations: some things are just easier to say yes to’ (Forsythe & Jellicoe, 2018, p. 104). Our argument is that with an increasingly complex and interlocking world coupled with the fourth industrial revolution (4^th IR), graduates must possess a combination of technical skills, soft and citizenship skills. As such, we argue in line with Zeleza (2019, p. 4) that:

[…] more jobs will increasingly require graduates to “fully merge their training in hard skills with soft skills”, trained in both the liberal arts and STEM,² with skills for complex human interactions, and capacities for flexibility, adaptability, versatility, and resilience.

With the paper’s focus on human conditions, social realities and civic agency, we make a case for different and more expansive pedagogical practices that transform the educational experience and enrich life. Specifically, the paper attempt to respond to the question of ‘What do universities in context such as South Africa need to do to move beyond pedagogiek van die bemarkbare to pedagogiek van plig?’ We do this by introducing to the Higher Education Pedagogies journal a Capability Approach, which is a normative theoretical lens to broaden the discussion of SL as a pedagogical practice that moves beyond skills to cultivate critical consciousness, civic agency and citizenship. In South Africa, pedagogiek van plig represents a mass civic consciousness, which vows to never take things for granted. It is a collective ‘duty to cause trouble³’ or raise indignation to all sorts of exploitation and oppression. The 2015 #FeesMustFall movement is a quintessential example of civic duty that demonstrates how protests as a collective consciousness were employed by students across universities to seek alternative ways of funding higher education in the country. Universities in South Africa while complicit in the neoliberal pressures, they are also sites of subtle enactments of civic duty.

Against this background, the rest of the article is arranged as follows: first, we present literature on the role of pedagogy in training graduates. This is followed by a discussion of SL as an alternative and expansive pedagogical strategy for training graduates. A review of the Capability Approach literature is done to build a deductive lens through which our claims are grounded. After a quick review of the methods, we analyse the findings in line with the themes of how SL as pedagogy in higher education contributes to citizenship formations, consciousness and civic agency. We close with three main implications on SL as a higher education pedagogy informed by a Capability Approach.

Dominant approach to universities graduates training

Globally, universities are increasingly under pressure to become more responsive to challenges of poverty, inequality, social exclusion, immigration, unemployment, political instability, violence, technological and innovation demands, environmental degradation, as well as diseases. Thus, universities are called upon to produce graduates who are engaged and socially responsible, critical, sensitive, reflective, employable and innovative. However, there are two major observations regarding the training of graduates in contemporary universities. One, regarded as a global trend, universities are preoccupied with producing graduates for the workplace and ‘there is much concern in society that students lack a social consciousness, and they are driven by materialistic values’ (Arthur & Bohlin, 2005, p. 1). This is within the broader realm of neoliberal-driven higher education (Orphan, 2018). Hartley, Harkavy and Benson (2005, p. 198) point out that, ‘the neoliberal context has a devastating effect on students since it legitimizes and reinforces the pursuit of economic self-interest, career skills and credentials’. Pike (2015) describes the commercialisation of education that views learning as a product to be acquired rather than as a lifelong way of being and becoming.

Employable and marketable graduates are needed to function in the neoliberal market economy and complex society. This, in itself, is a critical component of engaged citizenship because individuals are self-scrutinizing agents who are able to act upon their utilities. University education can enable graduates to acquire hard technical skills and become agents of change, conscious, and humane. The urgent need for these kinds of graduates has resulted in a number of authors calling for universities to advance citizenship (Nussbaum, 2010, 1997) and foster consciousness and civic agency (Walker & Loots, 2016)

Two, relatively little is known regarding the concrete and expansive pedagogical strategies that can enable universities to produce graduates beyond the acquisition of transferable and employability skills, particularly from the global South. Among many pedagogical practices and strategies discussed in the literature, very few are linked to the cultivation of citizenship, conscientization and civic agency.

Service-learning: an expansive and humanistic pedagogical strategy

Defined in many ways, Jacoby’s (1996, p. 5) provided a definition, which is in line with the human development and capability approach and it states that:

[Community] service-learning is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development. Reflection and reciprocity are key concepts of service-learning.

This definition encompasses dimensions of experiential, democratic and civic education, which are regarded as some of the theoretical foundations of SL (Giles & Eyler, 1994). SL that constitutes these elements may enable students to develop citizenship capacities, critical awareness and ability to act and bring about meaningful contribution to society. It is to this framing and scholarship that this article now turns.

Advancing citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency through SL

Consistent with our argument that universities have moral and ethical responsibilities to train graduates who have both technical and soft skills, we argue in line with those who herald SL for its contribution to cultivating overlapping capacities of citizenship, conscientization and civic agency and minded values among students. The works of John Dewey and Paulo Freire have been central to providing theoretical foundations for SL as a pedagogical strategy that enhances these critical values (Cipolle, 2010; Deeley, 2015). According to Deeley (2015), Freirean critical pedagogy focuses on nurturing oppressed individual’s critical thinking in order to secure a more just society while Dewey is concerned with the sustainability of democracy through education.

In his writings, Dewey focused on four dimensions, namely: pragmatic philosophy, progressive political vision, student-centred educational theory, and ethical imperative. Each of these elements carries a particular value in relation to education, individual and society. For example, the pragmatic philosophy ties knowledge to experience; the progressive political vision connects individuals to society; student-centred educational theory combines reflection with action; and ethical domain emphasises democracy and community (Hatcher & Erasmus, 2008). Broadly, Dewey was an impassionate advocator of the social function of education in a democracy and his main concern was an increasing citizen apathy and disengagement (Hatcher & Erasmus, 2008). As such, Dewey called for education to develop the capacities of all citizens to be active contributors to their communities (Deeley, 2015). The work of Paulo Freire has also been central to theorising and interpreting the value of SL. Deans (1999) reveals that Paulo Freire serves as a theoretical anchor for some SL advocates. Freire imagined education as a key mechanism in fostering critical and active citizenry. This is enshrined in his notion of critical consciousness, which is constituted in the dialectic of men and women’s’ objectification of and action upon the world in the individual’s grasp of his or her relation to society (Deans, 1999). Freire views this as the duality of consciousness of being in and of the world (Deeley, 2015). Further, Deeley (2015) indicates that consciousness involves change in ways of thinking or ways of knowing, awakening, an increased awareness, cognition and liberation. Many articulate consciousness as the agency of the oppressed or marginalised to become conscious in line with Freire’s concept of conscientization, which is associated with the idea of ‘praxis’ – emphasising action and reflection upon the world in order to change it (Cipolle, 2010). For Cipolle (2010) critical consciousness consists of four elements, namely developing a deeper awareness of self, developing a deeper awareness of broader perspective of others, developing a deeper awareness and broader perspective of social issues, and seeing one’s potential to make change.

The potentials of SL in cultivating citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency are largely due to its experiential learning, transformative learning and critical reflection elements. For Kiely (2005), transformative and critical reflection are significant in students’ personal, civic, moral, intellectual learning and enabling them to engage in more justifiable and socially responsible actions. Central to these elements is cultivation of critical reflection, which ‘can raise awareness of societal injustice and the need for more engaged and active citizenship’ (Deeley, 2015, p. 98). From experiential learning theory, the contribution of SL to fostering citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency resonate well with the work of Saddington (1998) on three basic orientations of educational practices used in examining different dimensions of experiential learning. These are progressive, humanist and radical as summarised in the table.

Adapted and modified from Fenwick (2001) and Saddington (1998)

The evidence that SL has the potential to foster citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency can be seen from an increasing body of literature although still dominated by views from the global North. In the United States of America (USA), SL is largely associated with the need for developing civic responsibility, building democratic society, and responding to challenges facing society (Steinberg, Hatcher, & Bringle, 2011). In the United Kingdom, SL programme is increasingly gaining popularity because of their linkages with the idea of democratic citizenship and development of moral and civic capacity among graduates (McCowan, 2012). SL programmes are also gaining prominence in Canadian higher education as they are seen to be vital in students learning, preparing responsible, critical and engaged citizens and contributing to improving communities (Hall, 2009). In case of the South American context, it is argued that the term SL is a relatively new concept but it is closely related to the concept of solidarity, which implies working together for the common cause, helping others and collectively removing obstacles and fighting against injustice within the society (Tapia, 2004). What we have termed pedagogy of civic duty. In the African context, although SL is relatively underdeveloped with the exception of South Africa, there are arguments that SL is understood within the broader social purposes of higher education (Hatcher & Erasmus, 2008).

In the South African context, it is indicated that the uptake of SL started during the mid-1990s following the debate about higher education transformation with respect to addressing apartheid legacies. The main goal within the transformation agenda was to restructure social institutions such as universities to improve and create a more just and equitable society. Nonetheless, it was realised earlier on that higher education was not doing enough to address challenges facing the new nation. The Department of Education (DoE) through its Green Paper on Higher Education Transformation underlined that:

Higher education has not succeeded in laying the foundation of critical civil society with a culture of tolerance, public debate and accommodation of differences and competing interest. Nor has it contributed significantly to a democratic ethos and a sense of citizenship perceived as commitment to a common good (Department of Education [DoE, RSA], 1997, p. 2).

Of critical importance is that community engagement, which includes SL, was an integral part of South African higher education institutions in their quest to contribute to transformation. Thus, higher education institutions were called upon to demonstrate social responsibility and awareness in students. This contribution to transformation has been reiterated in the recent past. At issue, higher education institutions are asked to contribute to eliminating forms of discrimination and entrenching democratic norms and a culture of tolerance and human dignity (Department of Higher Education and Training [DHET], 2013).

While there is an extensive literature that has focused on the role of SL in developing citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency particularly in the global North, this article attempts to bring two important contributions to the fore. One, it draws from the global South’s context, where SL is relatively new and little is explored regarding its contribution to citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency. Two, it introduces a capability approach (CA) as a theoretical lens, through which the contribution of SL to citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency can be deductively foregrounded and interpreted.

The capability approach and Nussbaum’s three citizenship capabilities

The capability approach (CA) as developed by Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum and others is a normative framework for evaluation and assessment of social issues in a particular context. The CA emerged as a critique to the traditional conception and measurements of development that pay attention to economic and quantifiable outcomes. The CA, therefore, focuses on human development in terms of what people are effectively able to do and be; that is, on their capabilities (Sen, 1999). Simply put, the CA starts with the questions of what people are really able to do and what kind of person they are able to be. Since its emergence in the 1980s, the CA has been used for different types of analysis with different goals and relying on different methodologies (Robeyns, 2017). CA integrates concepts of capabilities, functionings, agency and conversion factors, which provide generative and expansive tools for the evaluation and assessment of social arrangements or programmes such as SL.

Capabilities are central units of analysis in the CA and they are defined as opportunities or substantive freedom(s) to achieve what individuals relatively value pursuing in order to become who they want to be (Robeyns, 2017). In CA’s sense, capabilities are regarded as a yardstick of development and educational activities such as SL should aim at expanding students’ capabilities and their freedom to promote or achieve what they value doing and being (Alkire & Deneulin, 2009). Given that people value different things and have various reasons to value them, capabilities may include but are not limited to, opportunities for good health, education, life-enhancing skills, social belonging, leadership, relations of trust, a sense of identity, values that give meaning to life, the capacity to organise, the capacity to represent oneself and others, access to information, forming associations and participation in political life (Sen, 1999). While for Sen (1999) the list of capabilities is open for public deliberation, Nussbaum, in her typical cookie cutter legal approach distilled what she considered is a list of 10 universal and central human capabilities. It is out of these 10 that we selected the three capabilities that we explore in the paper because of the focus on citizenship.

Functionings⁴ are the beings and doings of a person which constitute what make a life worthwhile. They involve achievements people derive from being or doing what they value (Sen, 1999). Some define ‘functionings as the valuable beings and doings that are made possible through the availability of a capability or set of capabilities’ (Crosbie, 2014, p. 93). In SL context, functionings would allow us to ask what students actually value and achieve in terms of being and doing through SL activities. There are many examples of functionings one can achieve, ranging from elementary things to achievements that are more complex. Robeyns (2017) states that functionings may include but are not limited to taking part in the community; being sheltered; relating to other people; working in the labour market; caring for others; being healthy and adequately nourished, avoiding escapable morbidity and premature mortality; being happy; having self-respect; taking part in the life of the community and so on.

Agency is another central framing idea of CA, which refers to the ability of the individual to pursue and achieve the objectives they value. In Sen’s (1999) view, a person with agency is an agent who acts and bring about change and whose achievements are to be judged in terms of her/his own vales and objectives, whether or not we assess them in terms of some external criteria as well. The notion of agency elevates individuals as the principal drivers in making decisions that affect their lives, based on what they value (Ibrahim & Alkire, 2007). As a pedagogical strategy, SL is expected to enable students from diverse backgrounds to develop agency in terms of fostering ability to exercise voice and autonomy, and actively participate in the learning process and achieve valued educational and social capabilities (Wood & Deprez, 2012). Beyond this, proponents view SL as a pedagogical strategy that enhances students’ agency and aspiration to act and bring about changes in communities and commitment to advancing social justice (Cipolle, 2010; Mtawa, 2019).

Conversion factors⁵ are factors that determine the degree to which a person can transform opportunities (resources) into functionings (achievements). These factors can be grouped into three main categories: (1) personal, which may constitute physical condition, reading skills and intelligence; (2) social factors in the form of public policies, social norms, social hierarchies or power relations; and (3) environmental factors such as location, pollution, public infrastructure and so forth (Crocker & Robeyns, 2009). SL allows students from diverse backgrounds to work together in communities that are sometimes familiar to them or not. Depending on how SL is designed and implemented, such space may allow or constrain students’ ability to utilise SL for academic learning, personal development, understanding themselves in relation to others, developing social skills and the opportunity to cultivate long-term commitment to societal issues (Mtawa, 2019).

Applied to SL, CA foregrounds the values of SL as capability formation in terms of valued beings and doings and the ability for people to act and influence the world. The CA enables us to frame and interpret SL as a pedagogical strategy '‘oriented to developing capabilities and functionings for meaningful lives, lived well both personally and socially, transformed ways of being, engaging in public deliberation, developing equal respect for others in our shared humanity and acting for change’ (Nussbaum, 2010; Walker & Loots, 2016). Such articulation is in line with van der Ploeg and Guerin (2016, p. 257) who argue that ‘education should equip students in such a way as to reason and determine for themselves what kind of citizens they want to be and how they wish to practice their citizenship’.

When the CA is applied to higher education, Nussbaum suggests three citizenship capabilities, namely critical examination, narrative imagination and global citizenship. Crosbie (2014) describes these as cosmopolitan capacities that are fostered through educational programmes and in this case such as SL. Given that the application of CA is broad and goes beyond the scope of this paper, we draw on Nussbaum’s three constructs that are central to understanding the contribution of SL to students’ citizenship, conscientization and civic agency dispositions. Nussbaum moves beyond critical pedagogy writers such as Freire’s (1970) narrow focus on the liberation of the marginalized and oppressed citizens. Nussbaum (1997) nearly echoes Foucault’s (1980) narrative that both the oppressed and oppressors yield power that is important to bring positive change in themselves and those of others as citizens. Nussbaum conceptualization of a global citizen is cognizant that both the rich and poor, oppressor and oppressed require critical examination that involves developing capacities to reason logically, to test consistency of reasoning, correctness of fact and accuracy of judgment. This means that SL is not merely a pedagogy for enabling students from poor backgrounds to return to their communities and indiscriminately work on liberation projects. It also means that SL is not simply a tool for channelling students from privileged backgrounds to enter communities of the marginalized to experience lives of disadvantaged. Rather, SL ought to foster narrative imagination which refers to ‘the ability to think what it might be like to be in the shoes of a person different from oneself, to be an intelligent reader of that person’s story, and to understand the emotions and wishes and desires that someone so placed might have’ (Nussbaum, 1997, p. 85). Global citizens require an ability to see themselves as not simply citizens of some local region or group, but also, and above all, as human beings. In an attempt to demystify Nussbaum’s cosmopolitan citizenship elements, Crosbie (2014, pp. 24–25) argues that the ‘first is about cognition and critical thinking, the second related to the ties that bind us to fellow humans, and the third involved the ability to understand and engage with other ways of being in a more visceral manner’.

Applying the CA this way and examining SL through this lens makes possible to broaden our understanding of this pedagogical practice chiefly for two reasons. For one, it extends current theorisation of SL for instance, from critical pedagogy to educational strategy that enhances capabilities for individual and societal flourishing. Second, it broadens the contribution of the study to theory and the research producers used to a wider context within South Africa and beyond. The following sections expand on the research context, data collection and analysis that shape our current investigation.

Methodology

This paper discusses part of the findings of the broader qualitative study that aimed at exploring the role of SL in advancing human development in South African universities in two specific academic disciplines. Although the two academic disciplines are located in one university with three constituent campuses across one province, these units of analysis were selected with qualitative case-study research generalizability in mind (Yin, 2005). These units of analysis were selected as typical, representative, commonly occurring and theoretically interesting cases in higher education and SL (Williams, 2002). Additionally, the cases were chosen with Stake’s (2000) view that beyond universalisation, the key criterion for selecting a case study should be the ‘opportunity to learn [and we should] choose that case from which we feel we can learn the most’. The two faculties or disciplines of focus in this research – health sciences and humanities are generally structured in the same way in all South African and most African universities. These disciplines were some of the earliest in South African universities that adopted SL as a pedagogical strategy and mechanism through which to engage with local communities (Fourie, 2003). Although our analysis focused more on the disciplines, the typicality of the units of analysis also appears at an institutional level. Like the other 20 transformed institutions in the country, the university where the study was conducted is a historically white but now majority black university located in one of the poorest provinces of the country. In terms of the broader context, this case study represents an archetypal example of South African universities situated in a country characterised by patterns of inequalities, racial tensions, extreme poverty, high level of unemployment, gender inequalities, educational disparities as well as adverse impact of HIV/AIDS (Mtawa & Wilson-Strydom, 2018). The history of this university and broader context in which it operates met the requirements for a suitable case study particularly in understanding the expansive humanistic view of SL when framed as a strategy for cultivating citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency.

The data set was collected through in-depth interviews with 16 SL lecturers and 4 focus groups each consisting of 12 students. The criteria guided the choice of 12 participants for the focus groups were field of study, intersecting factors of race and gender and a mix of academic year. The selected lecturers were from different faculties across the university. The students, mainly, were from the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Faculty of Humanities. These include professional fields such as Nursing, Social Work and Bachelor of Social Sciences, which consists of Psychology, Criminology and Sociology. The SL courses covered different levels of study and involved partnerships with a variety of community groupings such as disadvantaged primary and secondary schools, marginalised communities and old-age homes. As part of a bigger research project involved human subjects, all ethical procedures were approved by ethics committee (ethical clearance number EDU-2014-055). The majority of interviews and focus groups were conducted from April to October 2015. No names of participants or institution have been used to ensure confidentiality and anonymity.

Considering the complexities of South African society in terms of diversity, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, the heterogeneity of students selected to participate in focus groups was critical. As such, during focus groups, it was imperative to capture biographic information such as ethnicity, race, language, and gender. This composition of students was important because the heterogeneity of students has a bearing towards understanding, developing and practicing citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency particularly in a complex and diverse South African society and beyond.

We framed this study deductively from a CA that helps explain conscientization, citizenship and agency formation in and through SL. Our use of the CA serves two purposes, first to test its applicability to a different higher education context. Second, to bring attention to the CA community a way to extend its application beyond mere analysis of individual valued choices as the only capabilities. This is in keeping with Merton’s (1968) observation of the common limitation in analysis of social phenomenon which we also observe is rife among novice CA users. We draw attention to manifest capabilities as those consequences of adjustment or adaptation so intended; and latent capabilities refereeing to unintended and recognized consequences of the same order. Thus, analysis and interpretation of the data were aimed at establishing whether universal theorization of citizenship in and through higher education in form of capability formations as done by Nussbaum (1997) has any applicability to an SL in global South context. Thematic analysis was therefore used to analyse the transcripts (Saldana, 2009). These themes were categorized into capabilities as universal manifest or latent theoretical concepts. During analysis of the data, transcripts were repeatedly read and several codes (capabilities) were generated (Saldana, 2009). From the multiple codes, three capabilities, namely affiliation and narrative imagination, social and collective struggle and local citizenship were selected, as they appeared to be recurring themes that cut across issues of citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency. This was a positive confirmation of the applicability of Nussbaum’s theorization of citizenship which we initially tended to doubt based on three facts. The first is the increasing critique of neoliberal influences on higher education and the inherent external and internal limitations of SL as a pedagogy for fostering civic dispositions that writers such as Stoecker (2017) talk about. The second is what Robeyns (2017) has pointed out as the potential dangers of drawing from a universal list of capabilities such as focusing on the general at the expense of the specific. The third one was Rickert’s (2009) presuppositional view that all social theories have aspects of their basic beliefs, which are un-provable. The table offers a detailed summary of students involved in the study and it is followed by findings.

Findings

Affiliation and narrative imagination

The contribution of SL is the cultivation of the capability for affiliation and narrative imagination, which are central values of citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency. The capability for affiliation ‘is about being able to live with and toward others, to recognize and show concern for other human beings, to engage in various forms of social interaction; to be able to imagine the situation of another’. (Nussbaum, 2003, p. 41). Affiliation is related to the capability for narrative imagination. The voice of students and lecturers indicates that SL provides space for affiliation between student and student (peer affiliation), and students and community members to develop. This capability was potentially enhanced because SL creates spaces in which diverse students and community members interact, connect, understand each other, and bring together and negotiate different perspectives and experiences. A closer look at the data suggests that affiliation can act as an ‘architectonic’ capability (Nussbaum, 2000) or ‘fertile capability’⁶ as it permeates other capabilities and values to develop.

Some of the capabilities fostered as a result of affiliation include a sense of belonging, friendships, connectedness and students’ understanding of themselves in relation to others, love, a sense of caring, capacity to imagine (narrative imagination), trust, interdependence, respect and valuing differences, acting ethically, critical reasoning and a sense of agency. Students’ voices relating to affiliation and narrative imagination provide a repertoire to develop humane capacities (beings), community care, imagining alternative and better future, and contributing to enhancing the well-being of others (DeJaeghere, 2013).

One student raised several issues that underline the capability for affiliation and narrative imagination cultivated in and through SL:

SL taught me the desire to serve and caring about others and knowing that regardless of a person’s status, everyone is equal and should be treated that way. While teaching them about the negative effects of drugs, you wonder about their future, what will happen to them? Because of the conditions of the community, one would shy away and think that this is dangerous community but in reality, they [learners] have a lot of potential and all they need is help. The living conditions of these learners are not good, they come from poor backgrounds and they are exposed to dangerous things such as drugs and alcohol abuse. The school is the only safe place where the learners can be (Allen, BSoc.Sc. student).

Several students added that SL enabled them to learn, understand, and develop the capacity to empathise with the conditions people go through in their lives. At the core of these students’ voices is what Nussbaum (1997) refers to as greater sensitivity and understanding the emotions, wishes and desires that someone placed might have. This supports the capacity of ‘compassion imagination’, which makes other people’s lives more than distant abstractions and encourage students to see themselves as not simply citizens of some local region or group, but also, and above all, as human beings bound to all other human beings by recognition and concern. The voices below provide some examples:

I think SL makes you grow, you learn new ways of relating to people, and it changes your perspectives. Before we started working with the women of night [sex-workers], we all thought that they have choices and they could choose another path for themselves. However, once we got into their space and started working with them we find that it is not necessary the case and there are other circumstances that force them to do what they are doing. Therefore, it is important to put yourself in someone’s situation before making any conclusion (Julia, Nursing student).

In SL it is important to show that you are actually interested in people’s stories. It is about building relationship, trust, listening to them, showing empathy, putting yourself in their shoes, trying to understand why they are on the streets, and not going there to judge them. Most of people would say can’t those women [sex-workers] find other forms of employment (Thando, Social Work student).

Through SL I learnt that we need to see the way people see themselves and be in their shoes so that we understand what exactly they are going through in their lives and not just come and judge them. Working with them we realised that they have strengths, skills and abilities what they need is support (Lesego, BSoc.Sc. student).

In these excerpts, students show values and capacities that enable us to recognise the worth of human life as well as human dignity regardless of background (Nussbaum, 1997). For Suransky (2017) what students are raising is not just [about] trying to live side by side and tolerate or ‘celebrate’ differences, but also [is about] critically engaging with actual differences in the contexts of social injustices. These are important capacities because SL operates at the interface of poverty, inequality, power and privilege (Mtawa & Wilson-Strydom, 2018), which are some of the typical features of South African society.

Students’ perspectives resonate with the views of lecturers responsible for SL courses and projects. The evidence of this can be seen from lecturers’ voices, which for Wood and Deprez (2012) create learning environments where students are able to reflect on the relationship between what they are learning and their own values in relation to what they want to do in the future. As noted by lecturers:

SL exposes students to real life and to the diversity we have in South Africa. This is key because their perceptions change completely, and they start asking very fundamental questions to say how is this possible for people to live in these situations? I see how students’ perceptions and attitudes change (SL lecturer).

I always tell my students to be passionate and committed because it is not only about the marks or credit they get, it is also about being responsible for helping to bring change in that community or to that individual. It is also about the compassionate attitude one must develop toward community, students should feel that they really want to make difference in the community (SL lecturer).

SL teach them empathy because as a human being you need to have empathy when you are working with people and because you are privileged that you have access to the university, but when you go to the community, you have to listen to their stories then work with them to come up with alternatives. Listen to them carefully and then have empathy toward their stories. We must not have an attitude of looking down to the communities (SL lecturer).

Lecturers think about the values and capacities students should be developing in and through SL. Lecturers capture four elements of critical consciousness proposed by Cipolle (2010). Importantly, both students and lecturers’ views underline an idea of ‘deeper self-awareness’, which connotes some aspects of the capability for affiliation and narrative imagination as described by Nussbaum (1997). The capabilities identified in this finding play an important role in allowing students to develop capabilities for informed vision, social and collective struggle, which epitomise citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency as extrapolated in the next finding.

Informed vision, social and collective struggle

Walker and McLean (2013) indicate that informed vision, social and collective struggle are about imagining alternative futures and improve social arrangements, being able to understand structures that shape individual lives and creating empowering opportunities, listening to diverse voices and contributing to social change. This description is important in two ways. One, it encompasses some elements used to conceptualise citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency. Two, as the data suggests, it resonates well with the purposes and potential outcomes of SL for students. As such, as a pedagogical strategy, SL enables students to understand and be part of community struggles and circumstances, empowering and advocating for justice, interrogating structures of inequality in society, as well as enhancing and contributing to the vision they have for themselves and for the communities. For example, some students expressed that:

They [community members] used to trust nurses to a point that if a parent had a child who was being abused, they would know that the nurse would direct them to the right channel. But because the health care system is now failing even us health personnel we are failing the community as well. It’s so hard to go there, seeing the challenges like the environmental pollution we saw there, there are houses which are left with no people living in them, there are children who are not going to school. You even ask yourself when you get to Springfontein if there is any school, do people work or what, you won’t know what is really happening because it seems like everybody is home and relaxing (Angela, Nursing student).

We found out that most of the problems are because of unemployment. It is a big problem and now even if we are to go out and want to help the community, how are we going to help them to address unemployment. We cannot help them to end the unemployment issue and for a person to live a life that has purpose you need money and other resources (Danken, BSoc.Sc. student).

While appreciating that SL allows them to be informed about social challenges and problems and take part in finding alternative solutions, students also raised concerned about the limits of SL terms of design and approach as well as the broader university education orientation. These limitations obscure student from developing an informed vision that spurs long-term aspirations for community change and civic agency.

So what can one do, when you go there and say you are going to start a garden with them, is it going to be permanent and sustainable thing for them. You come with your things and they see us with papers and they say you are just going to come with your own things and start doing your things and leave us like that. So it’s very challenging to go into a community and see the problems that you can’t even solve them (Elin, Social Work student).

People who come from rural areas say nurses go to the cities and get trained but they don’t go back to the rural areas. So, SL should help us to see why it is important to go work in rural areas and maybe the government can make nurses sign a contract allowing them to do university course and go back to the community. At the moment we do not go back to the communities we stay in cities so the needs will always be there (Aminata, Nursing student.

On their side, lecturers also seem to view the value of SL in the direction of enabling students to understand society issues and developing the ability to realise that because of their potentially privileged position they can make an important contribution in communities. The common thread that appears to run through the voices of the majority of lecturers is that of SL enabling students to make or develop capacities necessary for them to be able to bring differences in communities. The lecturers’ voices support a ‘critical service-learning’, which is aimed at enabling SL students to make sense of the world around them and others as well as to transform the structural of inequalities that hobble communities and their members. As described by lecturers:

SL does help them because they start asking what can they do or contribute. Is it their role to do that? What is their responsibility and remember some of these students come from these same communities. So it changes their perception and attitude and make them start to feel that they can do something about those situations. You can sense that in their reports they go as far as to suggest alternative solution (SL lecturer).

Importantly through SL, students start to realise that it is important to empower people if you really want to make a difference or change. Therefore, I tell students do not go to the communities to tell people what to do but do with them and then let them do using their hands and mind then you can empower them to be able to do things even in your absence (SL lecturer).

The communities benefit because students focus much in enhancing community members’ problem-solving capacities. So students through the projects are able to address those issues that enhance people problem-solving capabilities. The role is to make sure that resources are stablished in order to address specific issues that are affecting communities. Also many time communities are facing difficulties in their lives but they do know where to turn to so through SL students link communities with various resources (SL lecturer).

Enhancing capabilities for informed vision, social and collective struggle among students is important if universities are to produce citizens who are not only aware of societal needs but have a vision for creating a better future for themselves and for others as well as exercise citizenship agency to make difference (Walker & Loots, 2016). However, these capabilities as the next finding suggest requiring a capability for local citizenship.

Local citizenship

Citizenship operates at both local and global levels

Nussbaum pays much focus on the capability for cosmopolitan or global citizen (Crosbie, 2014). However, our analysis suggests the contribution of SL to developing a capability for local citizenship. This capability is about building local citizenship within the diverse and unequal context of South Africa. Local citizenship is fostered because SL provides space for students to understand and experience local realities. Also, SL allows students to create ties among themselves and with community members. Further, the capability for local citizenship cultivated through SL is embedded in affiliation as students forge ties among themselves. The capability for local citizenship identified from the data supports Espino and Lee (2011, p. 137), who argue that, ‘through SL students can gain understanding of themselves in relation to others and can confront their assumptions about communities in need, particularly those with whom they do not personally identify’. From the students’ perspectives, the capability for local citizenship is more about diverse students coming into contact with each other, from different contexts and navigating different personalities, and embracing diversity.

Speaking from the perspective that SL enables them to connect with people who experience different circumstance different from theirs, these students commented:

White people go into [Black communities] we are scared. That was a challenge for us also because we have heard stories, so when you go there for the first time you ask yourself where to put your phone, where do I walk and can I talk to these people. That experience made me realise that there is another side of South Africa and it is important to be part of it (Luthando, BSoc.Sc. student).

Firstly, I am open to anyone’s values and beliefs and I do not believe that there is [a one size] fit[s] all ways of doing things. There is no right and wrong because people come from different background[s] and you must respect that. Maybe it is because of this module [SL], because previously I wouldn’t socialise with people who have different values and moral[s] […] but now it is different because I know that there is various moral, beliefs, values and I know where they come from and I can now engage with them (Anele, Nursing student).

Similarly, lecturers believe that SL allows students to develop a sound understanding and engagement with complex local issues and changing the ways in which they think about themselves in relation to others. Thus, Nussbaum (1997) refers to this capacity as an element of human beings bound to other human beings by ties of recognition and concern.

SL contributes to deconstructing perceptions and you see students behaving differently and treating one another with respect and even dignity. This also happens in the community, in that, they start seeing the community differently (SL lecturer).

On two occasions I had Afrikaans students going to a really poor White township and these students are slightly from better off backgrounds and I think it was good for them to be exposed, to see that even White people could live in poverty. I do not think they were ever exposed to such reality before. Therefore, SL is a good way of exposing students to real life and to the kind of diversity, we have. This is key because their perception changes completely. Because we always think White people do not live in poverty (SL lecturer).

The citizenship virtues highlighted in the above excepts appear to be similar to the outcomes of early SL experiences proposed by Cipolle (2010). As such, lecturers appreciate SL for allowing students to learn about themselves, clarify their values, become more appreciative of what they have, and learn about people whose experiences and backgrounds are different from theirs. In addition, the lecturers value SL for helping students to gain a better understanding of perspectives and diversity; become more open-minded and less judgmental; develop an understanding of themselves in relation to others; become more aware of social issues; and identify different perspectives on reality. These are significant dimensions of the capability for local citizenship particularly in a multiracial and unequal society such as South Africa.

Discussion

The following section discusses three empirical and theoretical underpinnings of researching SL as a potential strategy for producing different kinds of citizens. We asked, amidst the neoliberal pressures of producing marketable graduates, can SL in the global south higher education context be conceptualised as an expansive and humanistic pedagogy? Does the CA help to explain such a broader view of SL as an educational strategy for advancing citizenship, conscientization and civic agency? The conditions under which the identified capabilities emerge depend largely on the context in which SL operate coupled with its practical implementation.

First, it emerged in this study that when SL is conceptualized through a broad lens such as CA in health sciences and humanities academic fields, it is possible to see the expansive role of SL that goes beyond commercialization and the production of merely employable graduates that is pedagogiek van die bemarkbare (pedagogy of the marketable). Although we observed trends of narrowing public purposes of higher education like those reported by Orphan (2018) in the global North, the findings show that there are still possibilities for an expansive and humanistic SL as universities respond to the neoliberal pressures. It is not that university lecturers and students are unable to see beyond the specific and measurable aspects of higher education. Moreover, we cannot eliminate the commercialization and market-driven teaching and learning – taking place in higher education but through changing our lenses, we can broaden our views and practices of SL by looking at how though in limited ways lecturers and students conceptualize and practice an expansive and humanistic SL as pedagogiek van plig (pedagogy of civic duty). This emphasises the importance of concepts, symbols and tools we use not only in our research but also in the teaching and practice. The sharper and broader the tools the better the job of dissecting and dealing with the current needs in higher education. The empirical data discussed above highlights the potential of SL to foster capabilities related to citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency. The study discovered that SL enables students to develop capabilities for affiliation and narrative imagination, informed vision, social and collective struggle and local citizenship. Students and lecturers attributed these desires to structured opportunities designed intentionally to promote these values in the researched programmes. Evidence from this research, therefore, contributes to steering the intellectual capital in higher pedagogies to service-oriented strategies for teaching and learning.

Secondly, it emerged that preparation for students before they embark on SL projects in communities is important. This study discovered that majority of SL projects are sporadic and often implemented on a short-term basis and in most cases are one-semester long. The limitation of short-term SL programmes is that it makes students treat SL experience as class requirement and thus default on altruistic dedication and commitment. Tryon et al. (2008) show that this impedes the cultivation and sustaining of capabilities. This was evident from the divergent view’s students provided regarding their SL experiences. While some groups of students seemed to have a sound understanding of SL and preparedness before going to the communities, others appeared to lack clear understanding and preparation. These are internal limitations of SL design, but they do not preclude the broad vision of producing global and local citizens through SL pedagogy. This underscores the need for adequate preparation and teacher’s knowledge about SL, the population served and their social, economic and political contexts (Cipolle, 2010). Mouton and Wildschut (2005) discovered similar findings and stressed the importance of student readiness and preparation prior to SL journey. Preparation is important because it is not merely a matter of the students receiving the appropriate knowledge and skills which could benefit the community, but they also need to be prepared emotionally and politically to face diverse views of citizenship. Preparation ought to start at classroom level with SL pedagogical practices designed and implemented to foster citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency.

One way of nurturing students in this direction is through putting them in diverse groups during SL courses and projects, designing SL projects and activities that enable students to learn how to be citizens and to act as citizens as well as working in contexts that stimulate the development of the three sets of identified capabilities. Our discovery shows that working in groups was one of the mechanisms through which students developed capabilities for affiliation, narrative imagination and local citizenship. Nevertheless, the diversity in the group, the frequency of group meetings, the extent to which students participate in groups, activities students undertook, places and conditions they experienced were central to fostering affiliation, narrative imagination and local citizenship. Cultivating capabilities identified in this paper requires SL programmes to be undertaken over an extended period. This is important for sustaining valued capabilities, which is likely to foster certain functionings. This echoes Cipolle’s (2010, p. 78) revelation that ‘when students participate in service-learning project over longer period of time, academic, civic, and character development outcomes are stronger’.

The details of these conditions and contexts were not sufficiently captured here as they are beyond the scope of this paper. However, Mtawa (2019) shows that for students to develop capabilities highlighted, several issues ought to be considered. These include incorporating social justice approach to teaching and implementing SL, making SL a space for experiencing and learning about diversity and other social dynamics, taking students to unfamiliar places, and developing activities that make SL a shared and collective endeavour. SL allows the expansion of agency as students understand and become aware of social inequalities and begin to think and act towards creating a just society through various forms of civic actions or civic duty.

Thirdly, SL as a higher education pedagogy affirms the elaborations by Nussbaum and the many application of her conceptualization of the discussed capabilities among CA scholars. Therefore, we see value in the common normative application of three manifest capabilities of narrative imagination, informed vision, social and collective struggle, and local citizenship that students and faculty members in our case study emphasized. These are aspects that prepare students to function in the economic homeostasis of global neoliberal and political economy. Nonetheless, this case-study also adds to SL and CA an often-ignored aspect, the analysis of the latent functions. SL as pedagogiek van plig extends our analysis towards latent functions of SL to show that in South Africa both students and faculty members take seriously mass consciousness of ‘the duty to cause trouble’ even though the neoliberal pressures on the university system and political economy would want a different kind of citizen, one that conforms to the moral and economic status quo. Pedagogiek van plig fosters a form of indignation that focuses upon the role of intellectual labour in a range of liminal citizenship struggles. Pivoting around dignity in the development of a liminal subjectivity rather than a false dualistic opposition of a global vs local citizen in global market economy. The discovery of latent student’s indignation and embrace of civic duty represents significant gains in understanding SL as a pedagogy and the CA lens as flitting and becoming.

Conclusion

As we close, we iterate that deductive research usually begins with a social theory-driven hypothesis or assumption, which guides the selection of cases, data analysis and findings. We focused on the CA especially Nussbaum’s three capabilities of citizenship. Our premise was CA would assist to broadly conceptualize SL for citizenship formation in the global south context. This was in our attempt to respond to the question of ‘What do universities in context such as South Africa need to do to move beyond pedagogiek van die bemarkbare to pedagogiek van plig?’ We used components of data drawn from a larger study with a carefully selected university case in South Africa. We analysed faculty members and students’ perspectives on SL as a pedagogy. We reviewed gamine literature and interviewed multiple service-learning actors to triangulate the emergent perspectives.

Our assumptions around the selected capabilities related to citizenship, conscientization and civic agency were that although Nussbaum claims her conceptualization of capabilities to be universal, it would not apply to global south context especially when applied to SL in South Africa. This was because we assumed that despite the increasing global norms of higher education, institutional and idiosyncratic variations still hold. Furthermore, Sen (2002) highlights that the CA can only account for the opportunity aspects of capabilities and not for the procedural aspect. Hence, we paid attention to both manifest and latent capabilities that SL makes possible.

Partly our assumptions were correct, as the CA could not account for the inherent limitations in SL design, and the unplanned outcomes. Nonetheless, the South African case demonstrates that the social relational configurations seen in SL including compatibilities and incompatibilities are consequential for understanding the expansive and humanistic role of SL in both local and transnational contexts. By using qualitative analysis and bringing social theory to the forefront, this article shows that juxtaposing students and lecturers’ voices against the CA standpoint on citizenship formation helps to see how SL when conceptualized with broad theoretical concepts such as narrative imagination, and affiliation enables not just our broader understandings but also how we can put in place and enact practices for students to develop capabilities in relation to what they are able to do and the kind of person they are able to be. These beings and doings are essential for one to function as critical and engaged citizens, aware of her/his surroundings and dedicated to providing meaningful contributions to advancing his/her well-being and that of others.

In society such as South Africa and the higher education system we explored that oscillates under enormous uncertainties, pedagogiek van plig, (pedagogy of civic duty) that emerges in SL, helps us to see deeper relations between higher education and citizenship formations. But the capabilities formed and the typology of citizen that develops, as our analysis shows is neither an exclusively global citizen peddling the desires of the neoliberal economy as the globalists like Nussbaum would have us believe nor a merely local one as the nativists assume. Pedagogiek van plig shows that a liminal and intersecting citizen emerges even when the global and local pressures exert their intentions on SL and higher education continuously.

Framing SL in the CA pushes this pedagogical tool towards the direction of cultivating students’ socially embedded capabilities – citizenship, conscientization, and civic agency. Such educational strategy is critical in students’ formation of shared values, such as fairness, acknowledgment of heterogeneity, which move citizens in the direction of respect and compassion, equal value and respect for diversity and tolerance, rich understanding of our common humanity and a meaningful life (Waghid, 2014). Actors elsewhere will draw from this study not only convergences and transferability of an expansive and humanistic SL as a higher education practice but also how they might employ a similar research procedure in a different context to understand and implement a broader version of SL.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was made possible due to the funding provided by the South African National Research Foundation Research Chairs Initiative [Grant number U86540].

Notes

1. HEFCE/OfS define learning gain as ‘an attempt to measure the improvement in knowledge, skills, work readiness and personal development made by students during their time spent in higher education’ (HEFCE/OfS, 2015–2017).

2. STEM here refers to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

3. ‘The duty to cause trouble’ in South Africa especially among Black and Coloured people is a form of cultural, political, intellectual, and economic civic duty. It is a mass intellectual consciousness that abhors any forms of victimization and victimhood. It takes its moral and civic responsibility to raise indignation and find humane ways of actions. Suffice to mention that its strategies are not limited to protests or toi-toi as it is popularly known.

4. Given the complex involved in understanding functionings in SL context, this paper focuses more on students’ capabilities and agency formation with respect to citizenship, conscientization and civic agency in and through SL.

5. The conversion factors are central in teasing out students’ capabilities and agency cultivated in and through SL. Although they are not explicitly discussed in the paper, the interpretations of findings point toward the direction of certain conversion factors that enable or impede students to develop citizenship, conscientization and civic agency.

6. Fertile capabilities refer to capabilities that tend to promote or assist in securing other functionings or capabilities (Wolff & de-Shalit, 2007).