Conference Agenda

Description of the topic/focus of the work and link to the conference theme

Service-Learning (SL) in higher education offers a valuable framework to connect professional training with socially meaningful action, particularly in health disciplines. In the context of physiotherapy education, SL can contribute not only to the development of clinical competencies but also to the promotion of democratic values such as participation, empathy, and social responsibility.

This study presents an SL experience implemented in a physiotherapy program focused on mental health, where students engaged with a community-based mental health association. The intervention combined group-based therapeutic exercise sessions with health education activities, aiming to respond to identified needs while fostering student learning. The project emphasizes the pedagogical potential of SL to promote critical thinking, collaborative learning, and civic engagement through direct interaction with vulnerable populations.

Methodology

A qualitative descriptive design was applied to explore the impact of the intervention from the perspective of participants. The SL project involved physiotherapy students delivering structured group sessions that integrated therapeutic exercise and health education over a defined period.

Data were collected through focus groups. Data analysis was performed with content analysis, following an interpretative approach, identifying categories and subcategories related to both health outcomes and the social and relational dimensions of the intervention.

Results and their impact

Findings indicate perceived improvements in participants’ well-being, including reduced pain and an enhanced quality of life as a result of the SL intervention. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction and expressed a strong desire to continue engaging in similar SL activities.

A central result was the value attributed to the group setting, which emerged as a key factor in supporting motivation, adherence, and emotional well-being. The group environment facilitated interaction, mutual support, and a sense of belonging, highlighting the importance of collective spaces in mental health interventions.

From an educational perspective, the experience promoted student engagement with real-world contexts, fostering the development of interpersonal skills, ethical awareness, and a deeper understanding of the social determinants of health. Overall, the project illustrates how SL can function as an effective pedagogical approach to integrate professional learning with democratic competences, reinforcing both educational and social impact.

This contribution offers a reflective account of Service-Learning in Physical Activity and Adapted Sport, a 4.5-ECTS elective in the fourth year of the Bachelor's Degree in Sport Sciences at the University of León (Spain). The course reframes professional training in adapted sport as a sustained encounter with communities whose full participation in public life is structurally constrained — people with intellectual and physical disabilities, people with rare diseases, refugees and asylum seekers, older adults, incarcerated people, and women in contexts of prostitution.

The course follows a four-phase model of service-learning in physical activity (preparation, planning, implementation, evaluation–recognition) and is grounded in the EASLHE understanding of service-learning as a curricular practice oriented to social justice and civic responsibility. Across two iterations (2024–2025: 59 students, 11 projects; 2025–2026: 39 students, 8 projects), undergraduates have co-designed and delivered adapted physical activity across several lines of work. Partnering with a local disability association and the university's social outreach office, students have run unified 3×3 basketball and 7-a-side football for people with intellectual disabilities, adding this year nature walks with shelter dogs. With a national reference centre for physical disability, projects have included boccia, wheelchair slalom and individualised personal training; a parallel student-led initiative has supported wheelchair-padel players with spinal cord injury, with inclusive tournaments at university facilities. A solidarity 5K race was co-organised with a rare-disease association. Three projects with a migration NGO delivered calisthenics, futsal and running for refugees and asylum seekers. Work with older adults, embedded in the city's Senior Citizens' Week, provided functional assessments and individualised feedback on physical condition and sarcopenia risk. An eight-week conditioning programme was delivered inside a regional prison. A project around the autobiographical documentary A cero.5 yielded an open-access educational breakout on disability awareness for secondary schools, co-produced with the filmmaker, a person with spinal cord injury. One project aimed at women in contexts of prostitution could not be implemented as designed; the team will publicly present the process and obstacles encountered.

Reflection is sustained by a written project memoir, poster-based dissemination with partner entities, and a pluri-instrument assessment system anchored in Holland's comprehensive model.

We reflect on how this sustained exposure cultivates empathy and solidarity as foundational democratic values, how community partners reshape what counts as professional excellence in sport sciences, and the tensions of teaching democratic competences in disciplines organised around an unmarked, able-bodied learner.

Service-learning (SL) is an educational approach that helps students to engage with society while learning on an academic, social, personal, and professional level (Salam, et al., 2019). Specifically, SL fosters democratic competences (Nortomaa & Grönlund, 2019). Teaching methodologies for the development of such skills refer to experiential learning through practical activities, which sometimes are developed as informal activities not officially recognized in terms of bearing credit for participation (Cinque, 2016). Thus, there is still difficulty to implement SL as a strategy for integrating democratic competences and personal growth in the academic curricula.

The aim of this study is to contribute to understanding how SL is inserted in the structures of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and how it contributes to develop democratic competences.

Methodology

We use a qualitative approach, by conducting a literature review of project reports issued by the UCM (2018–2025) (Xu & Zammit, 2020). We also use descriptive statistics to analyse the frequencies of the different codes.

Results and their impact

Results show that the institutionalization of SL at the UCM is mainly due to calls for project proposals. First calls emerged in 2015 as part of a specific programme of teaching innovation. In the years that followed, both information sessions and signing of an agreement between the UCM and Madrid City Council to promote SL projects, as well as further specific project calls, led to a significant increase in the number of SL experiences carried out (20 in 2019). Moreover, with the establishment of a SL office in 2020, the number of projects increased by 47% on that year. Part of the success of the rise was due to the reports that accompanied the calls for applications, training courses in some faculties, conducting research to share the findings and related outreach events.

Regarding the integration of democratic competences, following the instructions provided in the calls, most SL projects aim to develop critically reflecting, inclusive thinking, supporting the environment, intercultural understanding, ethical thinking and responsible participation in civic life (Gil-Serna et al., 2025). At the same time, those competences are linked with the eco-social principles of the 2030 Agenda.

We can conclude that there is currently an institutional involvement of UCM in SL, as this methodology is integrated into teaching practice across various knowledge areas, notably, within the Social Sciences area in the Faculty of Education, and in Health Science through the Faculty of Pharmacy.