ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I focus on a particular type of service learning – the radically engaged classroom. The radically engaged classroom adopts a critical framework of attempting to make a better world with those who are most impacted by the inequalities of our current world. I define the explicit aim of a radically engaged course as working with those most impacted to move toward social change, meaning a structural shift toward more equal power relations between historically marginalized and dominant groups. This aim demands that power inequalities are broken down both on a personal, interpersonal, and structural level. However, as Barri Tinkler emphasizes, working toward change in the service-learning classroom must be conceptualized as creating the potential for change, as change is a long process that may and likely will extend beyond the life of any research or service-learning project (2010, p. 5). As I evaluate my own course, I describe the complexities of a radically engaged classroom in the context of an upper-level urban planning workshop.
