ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways in which power is constructed and protected within service learning discourse. Given that the political economy is often couched in a universalizing neoliberal discourse, it is of absolute importance to examine the traditional service learning discourse and its implications for practice. The educative process thus becomes a necessity to the inner workings of the political economic enterprise, making it imperative to examine how sentimentalism operates within the service learning practice. The two aspects namely: sentimentalism and false generosity, coalesce to ideologically undergird and embed the service learning practice. Unfortunately, despite all the sentimentalism at work in service learning, little has led to the eradication of the dominant notion that White is right, so prevalent in the hegemony of helping practiced by the service learning industrial complex. The colonizing enculturation process of service earning is designed to justify the earning capacity of service learning participants.
