The Transformative Potential of Experience: Learning, Group Dynamics, and the Development of Civic Virtue in a Mobile So
- PDF / 464,192 Bytes
- 14 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 41 Downloads / 144 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
The Transformative Potential of Experience: Learning, Group Dynamics, and the Development of Civic Virtue in a Mobile Soup Kitchen Aaron Horvath1
International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University 2018
Abstract Civic engagement has long been understood as a transformative activity, conducive to the reformation of individual interests, beliefs, and preconceptions. Prior research suggests that such transformation occurs when individuals encounter and process novel and challenging experiences through the course of their work. Yet, as the literature on experiential learning shows, the lessons of such experiences are neither obvious nor self-evident. The challenges experienced through civic engagement do not necessarily lead individuals to change their perspectives on, or understandings of, the world. Rather, these experiences may serve to reify prior beliefs. This article seeks to explain how groups of civic participants collectively experience and interpret their civic encounters. It argues that collective sensemaking and the variety of alternative perspectives available within the group play an important role in determining whether novel information provokes inquiry and search for new understandings or if such information is assimilated into well-worn perspectives. I illustrate this argument through a case study of a mobile soup kitchen. I find that, even though volunteers regularly encounter potentially transformative experiences, their collective processing of these events helps to reinforce prior convictions rather than provoke new understandings. Keywords Volunteering Civic engagement Experiential learning Sensemaking
& Aaron Horvath [email protected] 1
Department of Sociology, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
Introduction The idea that civic participation is a transformative experience has long been an article of faith among scholars and community leaders alike. Following in the footsteps of Alexis de Tocqueville’s well-known study of democracy in America ([1835–1940] 1969), many scholars have come to understand voluntarism as the means by which individuals form into collectives, broaden parochial interests, learn community values, and develop political skills (Fung 2003; Putnam 1995; Warren 2001; Wuthnow 1991; Musick and Wilson 2007). The ethos of this idea is embodied in countless civic programs. Service learning initiatives at schools, the use of community service as criminal restitution, the formation of programs like AmeriCorps, and proclamations made by politicians of all stripes reflect the deep-rooted conviction that civic engagement changes people for the better. Despite the immense faith in the transformative potential of civic engagement, its muchheralded effects are not consistently realized (Clemens 2006; Dekker 2009). Reorienting individuals’ understandings and beliefs, as it turns out, is no small feat. It is therefore imperative to inquire into the processes by which such transformation occurs. In this arti
Data Loading...
