Eric.ed.gov – Becoming Socially Just Disciplinary Teachers through a Community Service Learning Project

This case study explores community service learning, disciplinary literacy, and social justice. Participants were seven Mexican American preservice secondary teachers in science, math, and language arts who tutored and gardened with children in a South Texas after-school tutorial agency as part of an ESL literacy methods course. Data gathering tools consisted of participant observations, written reflections, learning logs, visual metaphors, and a focus group discussion. Social justice themes were: respondents’ realizations of structural inequalities and their actions to counteract hegemonic inequalities. Disciplinary literacy themes were: participants’ learning more about their disciplines and disciplinary literacy, increased motivation and efficacy to teach their subjects, and the importance of the colonia, or unincorporated neighborhood, as an intersection between social justice and disciplinary literacy.