Service Learning in a Croatian University: A Possibility for Effective Partnership with Community Stakeholders
Sažetak
The goal of the paper is to discuss and compare the values, attitudes and purposes of service learning stakeholders in Croatia. Service learning (SL), as a pedagogy and teaching strategy that connects meaningful community service with academic learning and civic responsibility, has five major stakeholders: students, faculty, the university, the community partner, and the local community. SL was introduced into Information Science curriculum at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb for the first time in 2006-07, with the goal to transform the old teaching style and offer new roles to stakeholders in higher education. This study examined SL value from multiple stakeholder perspectives, emphasising the quality of 40 SL projects using Youth Service California's Service Learning Quadrant (2000). The results showed that SL can become a useful academic tool in transforming our Department and Faculty into a place that meets the needs of different stakeholders and supports the partnership development.
