Joining networked society: integrating Academic Service-Learning into formal school

ABSTRACT

The gap between students’ formal, school-based learning and informal, social learning has been widely acknowledged. To overcome this gap, academic service-learning (AS-L) pedagogy involves deliberate efforts to interconnect formal and informal learning by enhancing students’ transitions across multiple authentic settings and fostering their participation in various social roles. The aim of this study was to examine how AS-L is practiced among Finnish primary and secondary schools, what kind of stakeholder networks are involved, what the experienced outcomes are, and which factors enable the AS-L pedagogy to be embedded into the Finnish formal school context. The data consisted of semi-structured educator interviews describing nine cases of implementing AS-L practices in diverse Finnish school settings. Empirically driven, thematic data-analysis generated an overall description of the AS-L pedagogies examined. The findings confirm that AS-L pedagogy fulfiled the curricular aims, assisted in meeting the learning objectives and affirmed the fundamental role of external stakeholders in AS-L pedagogy. However, results also revealed challenges related to schools’ operational infrastructures, lesson frameworks, and teacher collaboration hindering the interdisciplinary implementation of AS-L pedagogy, preventing synergies with subject-specific learning contents, and limiting stakeholder networks. Innovative teacher activity, in turn, was identified as a success factor in applying AS-L pedagogy. The results indicate that interconnecting formal and informal learning requires schools’ systemic change, and furthermore, legitimising teacher’s transformative efforts fosters development and implementation of novel pedagogical practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic Service-Learning
• civic engagement
• connected learning
• learning ecologies
• systemic educational change
• interdisciplinary learning

Introduction

Academic Service-Learning (AS-L) is a pedagogical approach that integrates formal curriculum with students’ active and meaningful community engagement regarding real-life issues. The purpose of AS-L is to instil a sense of civic engagement in students and to foster their capacity to contribute to positive societal change (e.g., Cipolle 2010; Furco 2010; Hickey 2016). Although AS-L is a novel concept in the Finnish national educational context, this pedagogic framework is widely applied across public and private education in several Northern and Southern American countries. AS-L is also a rapidly emerging educational initiative in many European countries (Cipolle 2010; Furco 2010). In this study, we define AS-L as community-service related student activities that are fully integrated in pedagogical practice, aligned with curricular objectives, and engage students’ deliberate reflection of their field learning activities. Facilitated reflection that promotes academic learning essentially differentiates Academic Service-Learning from Service-Learning, which usually refers social justice-related activities beyond academic realm (e.g., Lund 2018). Educational benefits of AS-L are well established; several meta-analyses reveal that AS-L fosters students’ mattering, sense of contribution, and positive youth development (Celio, Durlak, and Dymnicki 2011; Conway, Amel, and Gerwien 2009; van Goethem, van Hoof, de Castro et al. 2014). Most of the publications rely on students’ self-report data and focus on the AS-L learning outcomes in higher education context, however only a few AS-L studies have been carried out at elementary levels (Celio, Durlak, and Dymnicki 2011; Furco 2010).

The purpose of this study was to examine Finnish teachers’ experiences in implementing AS-L practices in primary and secondary schools. The unique aspect and important addition compared to previous studies relates to the holistic exploration of factors enabling successful AS-L implementation in formal school contexts. Furthermore, this study introduced novel aspect and added values to the existing AS-L literature by identifying AS-L related stakeholder networks as we considered that collaboration practices with community members and societal practitioners were the essence of AS-L implementation. We considered developing pedagogies of AS-L critical because of the increasing gap and disconnection between students’ individual, externally regulated formal learning and their social, interest-driven informal and non-formal learning and participation (Hietajärvi, Lonca, Hakkarainen et al. 2020; Ito et al. 2013). Students’ increased alienation, school disengagement, and cynical relation to school work provide evidence for the existence of such a hypothesised gap (Salmela-Aro et al. 2016). Formal pedagogical activity, descending from the needs of industrial society, no longer prepares students to meet the civic and professional requirements of a knowledge-based society, entailing creative-improvisational capability and productive social participation. Students must now cultivate competences to confront complex real-life problems with varying creative solutions (Batane, Engstrom, Hakkarainen, et al. 2012; Marton and Trigwell 2000). Although educational systems globally have included novel curricular targets, such as the 21^st century skills (Binkley et al. 2012), into their educational strategies and policies, prevailing educational practices are still dominated by closed problems, rigidly scripted learning tasks and reproduction of pre-given knowledge (Hakkarainen, Hietajarvi, Alho, et al. 2015). Such practices diverge from informal learning contexts, where students naturally encounter complex reality and entangled phenomena. Although Finnish students’ academic achievements are highly regarded, their school engagement, defined as high levels of energy, concentration and positive cognitive attitude with perceived meaningfulness and sense of significance, is among the lowest of OECD countries (OECD 2013; Salmela-Aro et al. 2016); the practices of AS-L are likely to foster students’ meaningful school engagement (Scales et al. 2006; Yeager, Dahl, and Dweck 2018). In what follows, we introduce AS-L pedagogy and examine systemic school-culture changes that an implementation of AS-L requires.

Inter-contextual transitions and civic engagement through Academic Service Learning (AS-L)

AS-L pedagogy engages students in tackling real-life problems in their community as part of the formal curriculum, and, thereby, contributes to solving vital community problems and societal issues. In AS-L, students are guided to identify and resolve community grievances, seek and innovate solutions, and make a prosocial impact by utilising and extending their capabilities. Consequently, the resulting learning outcomes are students’ contributions that have real value and significance beyond formal pedagogical contexts (Epstein 2009; Richards et al. 2013). Outcomes are usually related to civic engagement, social activeness, global consciousness, social responsibility, and sustainable behaviour (e.g., Cipolle 2010; Furco 2010; Hickey 2016). Concrete example of such activity would be an initiative where students organise outings to elderly people living in institutions with limited or no access to outdoors. Hence, AS-L appears to carry high educational potential, since solving authentic, open-ended, and complex problems requires students to generate emergent, contextually relevant, and valued solutions. Essentially, guided reflection embedded in AS-L links the ‘service’ and ‘learning’ elements and, thereby, contributes to the academic objectives of AS-L.

AS-L entails deliberate efforts to interconnect formal and informal learning (Ito et al. 2013) by intentionally crossing boundaries between school and other cultural settings, enhancing learning potentials (Akkerman and Bakker 2011; Cipolle 2010). Rajala (2019) defined learning as a holistic experience that consists of a series of boundary crossings in- and across-social spaces (home, school, peer cultures) and enactment of diverse epistemic practices (formal, non-formal, informal). Boundary crossing is both epistemologically (diverging knowledge, norms, and value) and ontologically (existentially distressing processes of breaking social barriers) challenging and socioemotionally burdening but educationally valuable process (Packer and Goicoechea 2000). Prevailing educational practices do not assist students in adaptively navigating transitions between various settings and contexts and integrating diverging expectations, roles, values, and identities (Phelan, Davidson, and Cao 1991). Nevertheless, AS-L appears to have a potential for fostering consequential transitions characterised by shifts in identity and social position, and taking on new roles and critically reflecting on the struggle-laden process (Beach 2003). AS-L engages students in enacting diverse social roles beyond being mere students and learning to function in complex and authentic cultural environments outside of schools. Acting in new roles requires the improvisational building of identity (Holland 1998). According to Furco (2010), effective AS-L helps students to see their potential for making change; having many positive AS-L experiences may enhance students’ sense of agency and self-efficacy (Bandura 2006).

Teachers´ transformative agency in AS-L pedagogy

Investigations have confirmed the personal, social, cognitive, academic, and civic learning outcomes of well-designed, effective AS-L implementation (Celio, Durlak, and Dymnicki 2011; Conway, Amel, and Gerwien 2009; van Goethem 2014; Hayden and McIntosh 2018). Nevertheless, the systemic challenges of integrating AS-L into a formal curriculum and building associated teacher capabilities have seldom been studied. Successful implementation of AS-L pedagogy in schools requires systemic development in terms of expanding teachers’ professional roles and fostering their innovative professional activity (Messmann and Mulder 2011; Stetsenko 2019). Further, it is necessary to engage schools in improving their practices by reorganising school-community relations (Fullan and Quinn 2016; Hargreaves and Shirley 2009; Korhonen and Lavonen 2017). Transformation from an isolated school to a participatory institution interconnecting various societal operators tends to radically reconstruct not only the principles and processes of learning but also teaching practices and the teacher’s role in orchestrating the learning process (Batane et al. 2012). When pedagogical activities are expanded beyond the school context, the teacher may no longer master relevant knowledge, be the main authority, or comprehend all the issues that students encounter in the field. This is because AS-L activities are interdisciplinary, non-linear, open-ended and heterogeneous in nature; the required knowledge and solutions cannot be determined beforehand but emerge interactively through iterative personal and collaborative efforts (Sinervo et al. 2020). Moreover, AS-L requires teachers to undergo boundary-crossing processes themselves and build, together with their students, an extended network of stakeholders; hence, teachers are expected to cultivate the capabilities of building and maintaining networks and cross-contextual pathways of cultural participation.

To cope and thrive in the changing educational context, innovative 21^st century teachers need to cultivate their expertise by trialling new pedagogical activities, such as AS-L, and thereby proactively develop their professional skills and practices. When AS-L initiatives are converted into innovative pedagogical experiments, the transformative agency (Stetsenko 2019) of individual teachers may contribute collectively to the development of the entire school culture. Fostering AS-L requires reshaping organisational structures, collaboration practices and work processes at all levels, thereby affecting educational governance, pedagogical leadership, teachers’ roles and teaching practices, and pedagogical arrangements. Furthermore, systemic change is a slow and cyclical process, and previous studies have shown that schools tend to reduce contextual disruptions to ones that consolidate current activity (Fullan and Quinn 2016; Korhonen and Lavonen 2017).

Although AS-L is not explicitly included in the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education, its general frames of learning and teaching support the objectives and pedagogical methods of AS-L (FNBE 2016) and therefore allow the implementation of AS-L in regional and local contexts. The AS-L pedagogy fits very well with the Finnish curriculum’s emphasis on multidisciplinary integrative, phenomenon-based studies that focus on holistic and authentic topics rather than on traditional school subjects or decontextualised exercises (Silander et al. In press). Regional curricula, premised on the national curriculum, are drawn up by the education providers at municipality level. And local curricula that take into account the locality of each school are designed at school level to complement and emphasise the goals set out in the national curriculum from each school’s perspective. Finnish teachers are highly educated professionals who possess a high degree of autonomy and are expected to adopt and apply new educational ideas in their work. Therefore, a local curriculum is seen more as a process than a product, and it has a central role in school improvement (Korhonen and Lavonen 2017).

Research aims

The aim of this exploratory study was to examine how AS-L was practiced among Finnish primary and secondary teachers through selected case studies. We describe the phenomenon, examine the various stakeholder networks involved, illustrate the experienced outcomes by teachers, and identify the factors that enable AS-L methodologies to be embedded into the Finnish formal school context. The research questions guiding the investigation were as follows:

How has AS-L pedagogy been integrated in the Finnish school context?

What kinds of networks are created and utilised in AS-L pedagogy?

What are the AS-L learning outcomes experienced by teachers?

What are the enabling factors of AS-L implementation in the formal school context?

Methods and materials

Research design and participants

The present study is a multiple case study (Yin 2014). Nine cases representing variations of AS-L implementation practices in formal education were investigated to trace similarities and differences between the cases examined (Yin 2014). For providing multifaceted data, the cases represented various school settings and diverse ways of implementing AS-L (see Table 1). All schools followed FNBE, except one school followed both FNBE and international (IB) curricula and one only international (IB) curriculum.

Table 1. Participants, data, and case studies.

PARTICIPANTS (8)			DATA	CONTEXT		CASE STUDIES (9)
Role(s) in school	Experience (yrs)	Role in case study Initiator (I) Decision maker (D) Facilitator (F)	Interview (h, min)	School (7)		Curriculum Local Regional International	Case Study code	Description	Facilitator guidance	Target students All students One age cohort Elective course Selected groups (age)	Length	Networks established by Principal (P) Teacher (T) Student (S)
				*Small (S) Medium (M) Large (L)	Primary (P) Secondary (S) Upper Secondary (US)
Principal, Subject teacher (D.Ed.)	30+	I, D, F	56 min	S	P	I Local	Ia	BookBridge intergenerational project with elderly house and library	teacher planned lessons	One age cohort (10)	4 mths	P
Subject teacher (M.A.)	20+	I, F	2 h 15 min	L	S		Ib	Community Service course		One age cohort (13)	2 mths	T, S
Subject teacher (M.A.)	20+	I, F			S, US		Ic	Community Service course		Elective course, All students (13–18)
Principal, Certified trainer of socio-pedagogical intervention (D.Ed.)	20+	I, D, F	58 min	S	S		Id	Equine-assisted social education (EASE)		Selected groups (13–15)	Single day(s)	P
Special needs teacher, Certified intervention facilitator (M.Ed)	15+	F	1 h 35 min	M	S	II Regional	IIe	**Gutsy Go Youth activism intervention	intervention instructions	One age cohort (13)	1 week	S
Principal (M.Ed)	20+	D	1 h 1 min	L	S		IIf			One age cohort (13)
Subject teacher, Coordinator of CAS and Personal Project (M. Ed.)	10+	F	1 h	M	P, S	III International	IIIg	***IBO, MYP, Action and Service Project	curriculum guidelines and planners	All students (10–15)	Continuous	T,S
					S		IIIh	***IBO, MYP, Personal Project		One age cohort (15)		S
Subject teacher, Coordinator of CAS and Personal Project (M.A.)	10+	F	1 h 8 min	M	US		IIIi	**IBO, DP, Creativity, Action and Service Programme (CAS)		All students (16–18)
Total			8 h 55 min recordings; 70,000 transcribed words

* Large ± 1000, medium ± 500, small <100 to 300 student

** More information on www.gutsygo.fi

*** More information on: www.ibo.org

The data were collected in the school year 2019–2020; semi-structured thematic interviews were conducted with eight educators (one educator represented two cases). The themes and questions were prepared beforehand, but room was allowed for following the participants’ ideas (Kvale and Brinkmann, S 2009). The same interview frame was utilised in all interviews and it contained four main themes: description, coordination, networks, and evaluation of AS-L with several clarifying sub-themes in each theme (see Supplementary material). Interview questions were generated by researchers through gaining familiarity with case studies through teachers’ pedagogical material (e.g., planners and guidelines), student artefacts (e.g., project plans, outcome video clips) and other documentation (e.g., programme websites, newspaper articles). A total of seven personal, face-to-face interviews were performed (see Table 1). In one interview, two teachers participated together due to the similarity of their roles in service-learning implementation in their school. Combining their interviews was justified because their content was equivalent compared to other interviews. All interviewees were experienced professionals in the educational sector and possessed practical teaching experience ranging from several years too a few decades (see Table 1 for their background). The sample included one special needs teacher and four subject teachers in upper secondary school; three of these teachers also taught in lower secondary schools. Three of the interviewees operated as school principals; two of these had previously functioned as classroom teachers, and one had previously been a special needs classroom teacher. Two of the principals participated in teaching, and they also had doctoral degrees deepening their areas of interests (respectively, social pedagogy and teachers’ strategic agency).

Coding and analysis

The interviews were transcribed word by word. The data were subjected to multi-case analysis, which aimed at preserving unique characteristics of each case in conjunction with finding matching patterns for generating an overall description of AS-L pedagogies. Transcribed interview data were coded, structured, and analysed in Nvivo. Upon reading all transcripts, thematic coding was conducted to summarise the topics of the data into descriptive codes (Saldaña 2016). The coding cycles involved rereading the entire data several times to ensure that nothing was missed. The four identified themes were explored in depth by systemically reviewing coded text references and amending the coding structure through re-organising and merging the codes into appropriate main- and sub-categories forming the branching tree nodes (Saldaña 2016).

The first coding cycle was empirically driven and resulted in the following four themes: case study descriptions, stakeholder networks, experienced outcomes, and implementation enabling factors (Table 2). Following the empirical coding procedure, the literature advised interpretation of the findings. Theory on connected learning (Ito et al. 2013), networked learning (Hakkarainen et al. 2004), and innovative school models (Korhonen and Lavonen 2017) were especially consulted for supporting our interpretation and synthesis of the findings. The research questions from this study were formed to focus on each of the four themes derived from the data.

Table 2. The categorisation framework.

Research question	Theme	Main categories *	Example interview quotations
1	Descriptions of case study integration	Case study types
		Local curriculum Regional curriculum International curriculum	well, then the school wanted these [voluntary] activities to be formalised, and we [teacher team] organised such a course [AS-L] (Ic) this happens so that all the 8^th graders [14 yrs] in the city participates in this [AS-L] (IIe) we adhere both the Finnish [national core] curriculum and the IB program [international curriculum] (IIIg)
2	Stakeholder networks	Stakeholder roles
		Enabler Partner Disseminator	and then the head of local education department has agreed with principals that these schools are going to take part in it [AS-L](IIe) a language cafe for immigrants, where our students like facilitated learning Finnish and to some extent learning English among immigrant youngsters (IIIi) in the library that exhibition was for a long time, and like it was anyway in this area, and it was received like this that the school and the community do it so well that the library wanted to advertise it (Ia)
3	Experienced outcomes	Outcomes
		Communal participation Collaboration & cohesion Meaningfulness & influencing Awareness of self & others	that someone [student] dares to do something like that and be seen in such a role (Ib) they supported each other in getting the thing done (Id) and many feel empowered also about being able to do meaningful things, when they see that it has a positive effect (IIe) sometimes when I read through their final diary reflections, I wonder if they learned more through this, more as young human beings, than through the actual school learning (IIIi)
4	Implementation enabling factors	Enabling factors
		School’s operations Curriculum integration Teacher collaboration Innovative professional activity Student activity External networks (intersecting factor)	in my opinion, it (AS-L implementation) requires time allocation in timetables, and that necessitates some alignments in teaching practices (IIf) the worst thing we can do to ourselves is to arrange a multidisciplinary phenomenon week or day for the sake of it, it remains so unconnected (IIIg) building competence, those who are more skilful and experienced support the others (Ib) their attitude [teacher] such that they see learning specially as development of skills and personality, that you are not like stuck in a knowledge-oriented conception of learning (IIIi) students’ motivation and that, like they cannot be forced to do this, the whole thing being possible depends on the student deciding that I’m going to do this thing (IIIg) this is based pretty much on knowing a lot of people and knowing that this thing will work (Ic)

*Sub-categories with interview quotations available as supplementary material.

To answer the first research question, we constructed case study descriptions according to enacted AS-L pedagogies. The cases resembled one another in terms of pedagogical implementation (student activities and teacher facilitation) but differed in terms of curricular arrangements. Thus, the case studies were further clustered according to three types of curriculum arrangements: local, regional and international (Table 1).

To answer the second research question, we examined all text segments (f = 90) related to networks created for AS-L. The educators referred to various AS-L stakeholders throughout the interviews. We considered enablers (15% of all stakeholders) to operate in the background, advocating and providing resources for implementing AS-L. Stakeholders whom the students collaborated with and whom they targeted their projects to during AS-L activities were considered as partners (80%). Disseminators (5%) were considered to be stakeholders or forums, which schools utilised for sharing AS-L experiences with peers, families, communities, and wider audiences.

To answer the third research question, we examined those text segments where educators addressed learning outcomes that they perceived in their students and classroom communities (f = 190). Experienced learning outcomes were categorised into four categories: communal participation (f = 40), collaboration and cohesion (f = 60), meaningfulness through social contribution (f = 50), and awareness of self and others (f = 40).

Fourth, we examined the factors that promoted or hindered successful implementation of AS-L. These text segments (f = 360) were categorised into six enabling factors, where external networks intersect with the other five interconnected factors: schools’ operations (f = 180), curriculum integration (f = 116), teacher collaboration (f = 40), innovative professional activity (f = 75), and student activity (f = 20). Hindering factors were involved when an enabling factor was absent or prohibited forces being present.

Results

The results are reported below according to the order of the research questions.

Integration of AS-L in the finnish school context

The analyses performed to answer the first research question indicated that curricular arrangements for organising AS-L varied between the schools investigated. The cases were clustered according to curricular arrangements into three types: local (Type I), regional (Type II), and international curriculum (Type III) (Table 1). Nevertheless, the pedagogical implementation of AS-L, such as student activities and teacher facilitation were nearly similar across the cases.

Curricular arrangements

Type I cases were implemented as part of a local curriculum. These school-specific pedagogical approaches were initiated either by a principal (Ia, Id) or teachers (Ib, Ic). Such AS-L designs were developed locally within these schools and were customised to match school-specific curricular emphasis and local circumstances. The first case study (Ia) was a Book-Bridge literature and history project that was a collaborative effort between a neighbouring upper comprehensive school, a local elderly house and local library. The second and third cases (Ib and Ic) were Community Service courses (2–4 months) that integrated elements of voluntary work and civic engagement of secondary and upper secondary students. The former was a compulsory course for one age cohort (13 years) and the latter an elective course offered to all students (13–18 years). The fourth case (Id) was based on equine-assisted social education (EASE), which stemmed from a social-pedagogical framework aimed at strengthening students’ inclusion and school commitment (Mickelsson 2019). This needs-based approach complemented the welfare services that the school provided for students to adaptively respond to at-risk students’ individual and social challenges. Both the principal and the special needs teacher were certified EASE facilitators, and they ran half-a-day interventions to selected groups in a single-shot or recurring manner depending on the group. This AS-L case had a special intention of socialising vulnerable students into the school community by building trust among students and teachers, whereas other cases aimed to enhance students’ civic engagement beyond-school communities.

Type II cases were implemented as part of the regional curriculum, meaning that the educational authorities at the municipality level agreed to apply the AS-L intervention in all schools within the region, given that the school wanted to participate. These case studies promoted solidarity, peace building, and social change through media broadcasting. This youth-activism approach was designed and administered by the Gutsy Go organisation. It collaborated with the regional school administration, trained the participating teachers, and provided external facilitators to support facilitation during the intense, weeklong intervention.

Type III cases, in turn, were implemented as part of the international curriculum that these schools were authorised to follow by the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO). Students were involved in a range of activities demonstrating creativity, healthy lifestyle and voluntary exchange providing learning benefits. The pedagogic emphasis of these cases varied between individual and collaborative exploration (IIIg, IIIi) and project coordination (IIIh). Further, these case studies varied depending on targeted age cohort, from more collective teacher-led activities (IIIg) towards students’ self-directed performances (IIIh and IIIi). Activities were carried out continuously throughout the school year, and concerned all age cohorts except case IIIh, which was applied on a final year of secondary school concluding the AS-L experiences.

Pedagogical implementation

Student activities of almost all cases, except two (Ia and Id), followed the pattern where students were guided to look around and identify an issue (e.g., social or environmental) in their own community, which they were then asked to address by utilising their own ideas, skills, resources, and networks. Students were advised to plan, prepare, and carry out the actions contributing to the issue either individually or as a team, depending on the case. Half of these cases (Ib, Ic, IIIg, IIIi) also included joint service-learning activities for the entire class, in addition to students’ self-identified projects, to ensure a wider spectrum of participatory experiences. The pedagogical approach of two cases that differed from others, respectively, were directed to the youngest age cohort (Ia) and special needs students (Id).

Educators described a wide variety of AS-L activities conducted by their students. Common features were engaging with learning in an authentic context, interacting with the community, and contributing to the targeted issue. Among the cases where students identified a community grievance that they wanted to contribute to, younger children, disadvantaged citizens, and especially elderly people appeared to be the most common target groups. According to educators, students were ‘highly conscious of the elderly as a potential target group for voluntary work’ (IIIi). Educators described, further, how their students came up with initiatives to cheer up and bring variation to elderly people’s daily routines, for instance, through reading aloud, wheelchair walks outdoors, and pet meet and greets. According to the teachers, students also enthusiastically planned activities for younger children, such as organising handcrafting clubs or functioning as reading buddies. Students also wanted to offer help in the neighbourhood by volunteering to babysit, doing gardening, or providing guidance on using digital devices. Furthermore, some student groups wrote supportive letters to oppressed human rights victims and thereby contributed to public awareness and decision making.

Educators emphasised that ideally students’ initiatives linked to community stakeholders and curriculum contents discussed across all academic subject lessons as this would enable students to identify a larger variety of opportunities for volunteering and community participation. In the majority of cases, this was not possible, and AS-L activities were conducted as a separate learning unit.

Regardless of the case type, all educators revealed that coordinating and facilitating AS-L activities required considerable efforts from the teacher as activities diverged from other schoolwork. In addition to designing or adopting a novel pedagogical framework, they were also required to prepare a number of operational tasks to enable the student activities, such as: scheduling adjustments, safety assurances, parental permits, organising transfers, tickets, providing extra supervising adults where necessary, and networking with external partners. Further, the interviewees stated that evaluating students’ AS-L activities was flexible and non-formal by nature. Yet, they highlighted the importance of creating commonly established agreements and processes between all teachers and students on evaluating AS-L and agreeing on acceptable proof or evidence of passing. All educators favoured a lighter than formal approach to evaluation as they considered AS-L balancing assessment-intensive regular schoolwork. Students were, for instance, allowed to conduct their AS-L reflections by oral rather than written reports because of the heavy burden of other schoolwork.

Networks created and utilised through AS-L

To answer the second research question, we examined educators’ reflections regarding stakeholder networks created and utilised in AS-L. Stakeholders were categorised according to the three roles: enablers, partners and disseminators. Table 3 provides identified stakeholder roles, types of stakeholders, and examples of actors.

Table 3. Stakeholder roles, types, and example actors collaborating in AS-L case studies.

Role	Type of Stakeholder	Example	Contact initiated by
Enabler	School’s internal enablers	School leadership	Principal
	Governance	Education provider (municipality)
	Cross-organisational projects	Project funding for library, youth workers and school collaboration.
Partner	School’s internal partners	Pre-school	Students
	Private citizens	People in the neighbourhood in the need of help
	Recreational societies	Sport club
	Private sector	Local entrepreneur
	Public sector	Assisted living facility for elderly	Teacher channelling students’ initiatives
	Civic and non-profit organisations	Animal protection association
	Events	Demonstration, Symposium
	(Fund)raisings	Local and global charities
Disseminator	School’s internal forums	Fair for parents and school community	Students
	Social media	School’s social media account
	Public forums	Exhibition in the library	Teacher
	Media	Newspaper

Enablers

Enablers were considered to operate in the background, advocating and providing resources to schools for AS-L implementation. In some cases, regional developmental projects reinforced cross-sectoral collaboration by resourcing novel networking partnerships between e.g., school, library, or hospital, fostering considerably AS-L implementation. In some cases, implementing an externally developed AS-L framework required a mandate from governing bodies, such as municipal or other education provider. Nevertheless, the principal was the final decision-maker determining the school-level curriculum implementation in all cases. Further, all the interviewees acknowledged that the school’s internal enablers, such as principals and teacher colleagues, are the most essential enablers for successful implementation of AS-L pedagogy due to their support and contribution in the form of endorsing, coordinating, or co-facilitating the AS-L activities.

Partners

Stakeholders with whom the students collaborated and to whom they targeted their AS-L projects were considered partners. Partners clearly formed the largest and the most versatile group of actors representing various types of stakeholders: from private citizens to public, non-profit, and private organisations and to local and global events. Educators reported that students’ areas of interest had been the central factor in forming the partnering networks in almost all AS-L cases studied (7/9). The teachers’ moderating role was crucial in encouraging students to expand their networks and to broker their access to new areas of interests, contexts and opportunities. Although educators mediated stakeholder networks when needed, they widely agreed on the importance of students showing initiative in identifying the hardship or injustice solving to which they wanted to contribute. The younger students were more intensely guided in the AS-L projects than the older ones by shaping the objectives and contacting the relevant networks. The diversity of partnering stakeholders increased at the secondary level, as students operated solely or in small groups. Thus, older students determined the aims of their AS-L projects and identified suitable partners more independently. According to teachers, students usually found meaningful AS-L tasks in their existing networks matching their interests and comfort zones, some requiring more guidance, however, than others in getting started. Teachers mentioned the school’s internal stakeholders, such as younger students, as easy access networks. Similarly, they revealed that students were fluent in targeting their service-learning activities to networks consisting of private citizens, such as family members, acquaintances, or neighbours. Moreover, students often performed AS-L by utilising networks created through recreational societies and leisure activity clubs they were members of. Teachers’ support was, however, needed for contacting locally available non-profit and public sector organisations. Teachers rarely mentioned private sector partners compared to public and third-sector operators when talking about AS-L collaboration. Private partners, such as local entrepreneurs and businesses or larger commercial chains, were contacted only if some specific service or item was required to carry out in students’ service-learning projects.

Disseminators

Disseminators were considered to be stakeholders or forums which schools utilised for sharing AS-L experiences and learning outcomes. These included peers, families, community members, or even wider audiences. School’s internal forums were the most obvious and easy access forum for students to share their achievements. In addition to posters and intranet screens reaching student peers, interactive fairs and events enabled enlarging the outspread to families and other community members. Various social media channels, including both the school’s public and students’ private blogs and accounts, were mentioned as influential ways of providing students an easy access platform to share their projects with wider audiences. Interviewees also brought up more traditional forms of media: TV, radio, and newspapers, which had been approached both to write articles and to interview students on their community projects.

It is noteworthy that the school’s internal networks played a significant role as enablers, partners, and disseminators by providing forums for sharing learning outcomes. The same applies to libraries, which often participated in city-level developmental projects. Hence, libraries served as enablers by providing resources, as partners by providing students with opportunities for voluntary work and platforms to carry out their community activities, and finally as disseminators by providing facilities for exhibitions and other events for students to present their projects and share their learning outcomes.

Outcomes of service learning

To answer the third research question, the analysis revealed four categories of AS-L outcome (Figure 1): Increased communal participation; enriched collaboration and cohesion; finding meaningfulness through social contribution; and growing awareness of self and others. The first two categories were closely related to student activities conducted with external stakeholders, whereas the last two emerged through reflecting upon the AS-L activities. Students’ school engagement was considered an indirect outcome resulting from active and meaningful learning engagements. Similarly, students’ expanded civic engagement was considered to emerge as a result of both successfully conducted community service activities and reflective discovery of their capability of making an impact.

Figure 1. Experienced outcomes of AS-L. Action and reflection elements are facilitated AS-L activities, whereas school engagement and civic engagement elements are considered indirect AS-L outcomes.

Increased communal participation

The majority of the AS-L cases required students to identify the community issue they wanted to contribute to. According to the interviewees, students’ ability to identify and initiate their community service target differed greatly, with some struggling and requiring more guidance from the peer group or teacher and others being more resourceful. Some students might not have taken a big leap from their familiar contexts, whereas other students’ skills and preferences led them further from their natural environments. While one led a panel discussion on circular economy, another picked trash on their home street. Yet, they all contributed to the same target. Nonetheless, educators generally complimented students’ skilful noticing of areas for improvement in the community and innovative creative solutions for addressing the issues. Almost all the educators mentioned students’ increased ability to plan, endure, and complete a series of activities, as well as their enhanced accountability for their AS-L actions, which was apparent in younger as well as older students. Furthermore, teachers revealed that, in addition to project execution skills, operational competences and responsibility, performing AS-L activities also enhanced students’ decisiveness and confidence in expression, evidenced by persuasive defence of their initiatives when collaborating with stakeholders. Furthermore, educators stated that during their AS-L projects, students often had to go beyond their comfort zones, building up social courage as they interacted with new contexts and stakeholders. Some of the students reportedly reflected on their agentic AS-L experiences by describing how they had experienced these situations as extremely challenging. Moreover, many students revealed that they had not initially believed that they would be able to complete their AS-L project, that the AS-L experiences had changed their self-image and that they were keen to repeat the experience knowing that they would be able to do it.

Enriched collaboration and cohesion

Educators reported that they perceived students’ social competences developing during AS-L activities. Further, students were also able to employ their prevailing social and other skills more expansively in AS-L activities than schoolwork usually allows. Interviewees addressed, for example, students’ well-mannered conversational skills in AS-L activities when approaching external stakeholders or operating with people from various backgrounds and age groups, from small children to senior citizens. In addition to increased social interactions beyond the classroom, teachers frequently referenced the positive collaboration between students and increased level of social cohesion within a student group during and after AS-L activities. They described students being helpful and supportive towards each other during the project, and further elaborated that participating in AS-L activities had enhanced solidarity and increased social cohesion and trust between students. Several teachers also mentioned that novel between-student friendships arose during the AS-L projects; apparently, a special bond was created when students had a chance to see each other beyond their ‘school roles’. According to educators, students stated that they did not know that their peers were so kind, helpful or talented. Some of the educators referred to the intense presence of students when contributing to challenging and dedicate issues. This, in turn, appeared to positively impact group dynamics and increase trust among students and teachers.

Finding meaningfulness through social contributions

Educators said that they had perceived their students enjoying the AS-L activities. They exemplified the optimism of their students as they cheered up the elderly house residents’ day, tutored the younger students, and proudly handed in the donations they had collected. The interviewees further explained that when students contributed to authentic issues it appeared to create a sense of purpose as students realised that they were actually able to make a difference. Also, students’ reflections reaffirmed this sense of empowerment of students during AS-L activities due to the challenges experienced. Identifying societal issues in their community, inventing solutions, and being required to address those, made students initially doubtful and later joyful, according to teachers, as they realised that they succeeded in influencing others and making a social contribution. Many of the interviewees further contemplated that they found AS-L participation significantly contributing to students’ wellbeing and school engagement. They pondered, that this was likely to be related to the experience of being heard and seen, helping each other, and being part of a consequential workgroup. According to teachers, the enthusiastic and empowered appearance of students was demonstrated by the way they began to contribute, share, and speak up. Further on, some of the students opened up about their personal experiences and thoughts, sometimes even very intimate ones, as a result of an increased level of trust in the group.

Growing awareness of the self and others

Without exception, all educators found that AS-L activities provided students with immense opportunities to be redefined in the eyes of others and themselves. Operating beyond the traditional school context and conventional assignments seemingly enabled students to show characteristics and utilise assets that were not surfacing during other classes. It also became evident that many students who were struggling academically or failing to follow school’s routines prospered during AS-L activities. These students had often experienced multiple failures at school and might have been prejudiced by teachers suspecting their abilities, or competences to participate AS-L activities. Many educators indicated, however, that such students demonstrated alternative strengths, enabling them to flourish in authentic community activities. In addition to growing awareness of one’s unique strengths, the educators mentioned ‘human growth’ as a significant AS-L outcome they had seen in their students. According to teachers, stakeholder collaboration provided students with a growing consciousness of human diversity when interacting with people with diverse backgrounds and roles. Several educators, in fact, pondered whether there had actually been more personal growth through AS-L activities than through any other academic subject.

Enabling factors for AS-L implementation

In this section, the enabling and hindering factors (Table 4) of successful implementation of AS-L in the formal school context are explained to answer the fourth research question.

Table 4. Enabling factors of implementing AS-L.

					Enabling factor	Liable party	Factor entails	Intersecting enabling factor
					5. STUDENT ACTIVITY	STUDENTS	Student activity and motivation	6.EXTERNAL NETWORS	EDUCATION PROVIDER, PRINCIPAL, TEACHER, STUDENT
				4. INNOVATIVE PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY		INDIVIDUAL TEACHER	Competence Transformative agency
Pedagogical Leadership			3. TEACHER COLLABORATION			TEACHERS & PRINCIPAL	School community Co-teaching		Existence of networks Networking competences
		2. CURRICULUM INTEGRATION					Curriculum design Curriculum implementation
Operational Leadership	1. SCHOOL’S OPERATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE					PRINCIPAL & EDUCATION PROVIDER	Resources, Structures, Coordination Distributed Leadership

Schools’ operational infrastructure and curriculum integration

According to the educators, the successful implementation of AS-L required the appropriate organisation of resources, structures, and coordinated activities. These factors were considered to provide the school’s operational infrastructure governed by the leadership. When struggling with the implementation or proposing developmental ideas, educators considered adequate and flexible resource allocation critical. They preferred leaders to rethink both organisational (e.g., team and meeting structures, curricular timetables, ways of working) and professional (e.g., use of working time, compensation, appointing roles and responsibilities) elements. Operational limitations mentioned were mainly related to the allocation of working time and increased workload of teachers facilitating AS-L activities, with ‘dozens of tasks’. All educators considered that supervisors’ encouragement and affirmative stance was or would have been critical for creating supportive operational practices. They further addressed the recognition, encouragement, and advocating the presence of superiors to be imperative for the continuity of AS-L pedagogy at school.

Educators were consistent in their notion that AS-L pedagogies should arise from inside out and thus be fully integrated with both curriculum and school structures. As such, the curriculum integration factor appeared to be a central enabling factor, being closely related to operational infrastructure and teacher collaboration at school. From a curriculum design point of view, educators highlighted the interdisciplinary nature of AS-L pedagogy, which was considered an immense asset. The interviewees’ stated AS-L cases covering the curricular requirements of 21^st century skills, and furthermore, AS-L pedagogy providing an excellent method of meeting the statutory curricular objectives of integrative phenomenon-based learning. However, the educators’ expectations were, generally, not met from a curriculum implementation point of view. The majority of curriculum-related discourse highlight the existing limitations and deficiencies of AS-L integration with subject-specific contents of curriculum. In addition, participants expressed that, due to the lack of teacher collaboration, the synergies between AS-L and objectives of subject-specific units were not utilised. Consequently, educators suggested stronger links between AS-L and curriculum and proposed structural revisions in lesson frameworks to allow dedicated time allotments for interdisciplinary lessons.

Teacher collaboration and innovative professional activities

It was acknowledged that continuous implementation of AS-L would have required enhanced teacher collaboration and revision of prevailing operational practices. The interviewees’ talk related to teacher collaboration addressed both the school community and co-teaching. In order to apply AS-L as a school-wide pedagogical approach, all teachers should be at least aware, but preferably also support deeper curricular integration of AS-L activities. Currently, AS-L coordination and facilitation tend to be the sole responsibility of assigned teachers; consequently, AS-L opportunities that genuinely integrate in subject-specific academic contents are inadequately utilised. Cross-disciplinary teacher collaboration, especially concerning secondary and upper secondary education, was recognised as significant but not actualised. Further, when trialling a novel pedagogical approach, educators considered co-teaching as a meaningful and less burdensome approach since collegial support takes place instinctively.

In addition to schools’ operational structures and collective ways of working, educators’ personal approach towards developing service-learning pedagogies also mattered greatly to successful AS-L implementation. We considered innovative professional activity (Messmann and Mulder 2011; Stetsenko 2019) as a factor enabling the improvement of teachers’ AS-L pedagogical competences and transformative agency. AS-L competences are reportedly facilitated by understanding guiding educational political and strategic documents as well as mastering subject-specific content knowledge and pedagogical methods of orchestrating AS-L processes. Such comprehension enables educators to be more courageous in trialling new ways of working. The interviewees also stated that strong subject-specific curricular content knowledge is essential when integrating AS-L in subject units and guiding students to participate in various beyond-school AS-L contexts. Closely related to the teacher collaboration factor, educators supported their colleagues in various ways to strengthen AS-L competences among school staff. They mentioned, for example, brief inductions on AS-L methodology, regular reminders to raise AS-L points of view during their lessons, and providing support in finding networking opportunities. AS-L facilitators’ capability to constantly adjust and re-orientate themselves was seen as necessary because service learning included situations that cannot be foreseen.

Student activity and external networks

AS-L pedagogy adheres to the principles of student-centred and problem-based learning; thus, it is logical that student activity was considered one of the enabling factors of AS-L implementation. According to the educators, students’ enthusiasm – that is, how they got excited and involved – played an important role in successful AS-L activities. The interviewees revealed that beyond teacher guidance, students’ backgrounds, previous experiences, and their value, empathy, and past voluntary work also enhanced their willingness to participate. In each AS-L case, the students’ approach towards service learning was principally affirmative. Moreover, educators addressed occasions where students repeatedly signed up for elective service-learning courses, came constantly up with service project initiatives, or started volunteering upon AS-L experience at school. On some occasions, students even ideated how to extend AS-L activities to involve the student mentor role to allow them to continue activities with younger students, or to reach out to those students that were not targeted by AS-L in their school. On the contrary, especially regarding the secondary and upper secondary students, their intense study programmes and leisure-time pursuits were recognised by educators as factors limiting their commitment to and extensity of AS-L activities, especially when activities were to be (partly) conducted beyond lessons. To prevent students from experiencing further stress and burden related to schoolwork, evaluating service-learning outcomes was kept as light as possible in all cases examined.

We positioned external networks as an intersecting enabling factor because stakeholder-related discourse was central in all previously discussed enabling factors. According to the interviewers, identification, establishment, and maintenance of external networks was a crucial element of AS-L implementation. Furthermore, they considered networking with external stakeholders rather novel in the formal teaching and learning context. Nevertheless, acquiring relevant networks was seen as important for deepening the AS-L curriculum integration by incorporating academic learning contents with practices of external expert communities. This was further considered to support students in identifying a wider variety of opportunities to contribute to authentic communal activities. Thus, teachers’ networking competences also indicated how skilled they were in guiding students and brokering their access to relevant networks. Overall, educators acknowledged that school was a central operator in society, and it should open up, and link learners and other communities within society. However, they considered networking-related tasks likely to expand teachers’ workload, if not supported by an operational re-organisation of school. In addition to adequate prerequisites for networking on the school side, the interviewees considered that stakeholders’ resources, structures, and competences were also essential for effective networking.

Discussion

Reflecting on results

This study examined how AS-L, a currently emerging pedagogical approach, was practiced among Finnish primary and secondary teachers through selected case studies.

The findings related to the first research question indicated that AS-L pedagogy aligns with the national curriculum objectives (Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE) 2016) by contributing to the learning of students’ 21^st century transversal competences (Binkley at al. 2012). The interviewees considered AS-L pedagogy advantageous, as it also fulfiled the curricular requisites for interdisciplinary learning, offering a practical implementation method for phenomenon-based integrative learning units (Silander et al. In press).

To answer the second research question, we identified stakeholders functioning in enabler, partner, and disseminator roles. We also concluded that establishing and maintaining stakeholder networks at both the school and teacher levels is necessary for successful implementation of AS-L. This aligns with previous research where external networks were seen beneficial in assisting students in transitioning across various contexts (Phelan, Davidson, and Cao 1991; Beach 2003) and contributing educators’ boundary-crossing competences (Barron 2006). Although the present educators were evidently well connected and able to broker connections, it appeared that educators and schools overall possessed scant external partnerships, and limited structures and competences for networked learning practices, apparently as mutually successful partnerships are complex and time-consuming to generate (Bunnel 2005; O’Hair et al. 2005).

Analyses related to the third research question revealed that educators considered participation in AS-L to increase students’ communal participation, enrich their collaboration and cohesion, assist in finding meaningfulness through social contribution, and elicit a growing awareness of self and others. Such findings are supported by previous research according to which AS-L enhances students’ school and civic engagement, self-concept, and social skills related to communication, problem solving, and student leadership (e.g., Celio, Durlak, and Dymnicki 2011; Conway, Amel, and Gerwien 2009; van Goethem et al. 2014; Furco 2010; Richards et al. 2013). Overall, educators experienced that expanding the context of pedagogical activity to the surrounding communities (Rajala 2019) enhanced students’ learning outcomes and their school and civic engagement. Therefore, connecting AS-L to educational practices could assist in addressing the issue of Finnish students’ school engagement, which is currently at the bottom of international comparisons (OECD 2013; Salmela-Aro et al. 2016).

Less encouraging findings were revealed regarding the fourth research question. We found that critical success factors enabling successful AS-L implementation, such as supportive operational infrastructure, multidisciplinary curriculum implementation and cross-subject teacher collaboration, were not successfully realised throughout the case studies. Implementation challenges regarding fundamental transformations are understandable in the light of previous literature guiding systemic school improvement (Binkley et al. 2012; Fullan and Quinn 2016; Hargreaves and Shirley 2009; Korhonen and Lavonen 2017).

Educators of this study raised their worry also about the risk of overburdening single teachers unless their role as ‘innovator-teacher’ is not recognised. Legitimating teacher’s innovative professional activity and providing resources and support has been proven useful in school improvement (Messmann and Mulder 2011; Silander et al. In press; Stetsenko 2019).

Limitations

When interpreting the results, it is necessary to consider the limited number of informants and cases investigated. However, as the evidence is generated from multiple case studies and the selected cases appear representative (several types of AS-L implementation, age groups, and school settings), we consider the data presentable. Further, the interviewees had multifaceted practice-based AS-L experiences and possessed extensive teaching or school leadership experience; this helped them to provide comprehensive answers to interview questions. Another limitation considered is that learning outcomes were examined through teacher reflections, no student participants were involved, and no student achievement data was used. The present educators were involved in integrating AS-L pedagogies with educational practices. Hence, in accordance with the Hawthorne effect (Payne and Payne 2004), their assessments of pedagogic and learning outcomes of AS-L may have been positively coloured. Nevertheless, the interviews contained cautious remarks and realistically toned observations as well as critique. Accounts provided by the interviews aligned with one another and provided a coherent view of the investigated AS-L phenomena.

Concluding remarks

Finland, as one of the Nordic countries, is a welfare state with built-in cultural expectations that citizens contribute through taxation and that the state and municipalities are then responsible for caring for societal issues and disadvantaged citizens (Kettunen 2012). Hence, volunteering, charity work, and participating in local community activities do not play as central role in Finland as in countries with weaker social security. Accordingly, schools are considered independent, state-funded operators, without extensive external support networks and collaborative partners. However, there appears to be change in terms of social responsibility, sharing economy, and youth activism partly enabled and fostered by digitalisation. It appears that new generations embody higher social responsibility and would be more open to a culture of voluntarism and participation (Jenkins 2016).

To conclude, the case studies examined here support earlier findings of promising learning outcomes and concede that connections between school and surrounding society assist in avoiding adverse academic, social, and personal consequences (e.g., Bunnell 2005; Celio, Durlak, and Dymnicki 2011; Epstein 2009; Ito et al. 2013; Scales et al. 2006). Integrating schooling with communal and societal participation fosters students’ sense of belonging and meaningful contribution (e.g., Hayden and McIntosh 2018; Yeager, Dahl, and Dweck 2018). Accordingly, interconnecting education and community participation, as characterised by AS-L, appears critical for overcoming gaps between in- and out-of-school activity. Finally, to complement existing AS-L literature, this study identified the key role of systemic school improvement frameworks (e.g., Korhonen and Lavonen 2017) including teachers’ innovative professional activity (e.g., Messmann and Mulder 2011; Stetsenko 2019) as fundamental enablers of successful AS-L integration in formal school context.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Emil Aaltonen Foundation.