Conference Agenda

Topic and focus

This contribution investigates the transformative potential of Service-Learning (SL) in higher education by examining how university faculty members experience and narrate the changes it produces — in their teaching practices, professional identity, and institutional context. A particular focus is placed on the organizational and institutional affordances (Gibson, 1979) that enable or hinder the sustainable integration of SL within academic culture.

Link to the conference theme and track

Strengthening democratic culture in higher education requires not only pedagogical innovation but structural conditions capable of sustaining it. This research speaks directly to Track B by addressing the barriers and facilitators of SL institutionalization, the role of institutional recognition for faculty, and the conditions that allow the university to fulfil its civic and democratic mission through community partnership.

Methodology

The study adopts a qualitative, exploratory design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 faculty members across nine faculties at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Brescia and Piacenza campuses), all actively engaged in SL project coordination. Verbatim transcripts were analyzed through systematic verb-frequency clustering, identifying recurring verbs organized around three key actors (students, faculty, community) and grouped into six thematic clusters — didactic, organizational/institutional, boundary crossing, professional, relational, and transformative — arranged across two analytical areas: process and transformation.

Results and impact

Findings reveal that SL generates distributed, multi-level transformation. Rather than appearing in explicitly transformative verbs (change, become), change is embedded in more discrete actions: understand, see, enter. This "grammar of transformation" suggests that transformation occurs primarily in situated action and relational encounter rather than as a consciously declared outcome. Reflective practices remain structurally weak across the corpus, pointing to a critical gap that institutional design must address. Organizational affordances — recognition policies, dedicated resources, career evaluation criteria, and structured spaces for collegial reflection — emerge as decisive conditions for SL sustainability. The community partner remains the least systematized actor in the SL ecosystem, signaling an underexplored dimension of university–territory collaboration.

These findings offer concrete implications for universities seeking to move from isolated SL projects to durable institutional commitments: designing SL means designing not only the encounter between academia and community, but also the reflective and organizational infrastructure that makes transformation visible, nameable, and reproducible.