Abstract

MAYER, Liliana  and  PEROZZO-RAMIREZ, Wanda. Service Learning enactment in International Baccalaureate Schools in Argentina. Alteridad [online]. 2021, vol.16, n.1, pp.65-75. ISSN 1390-8642.  https://doi.org/10.17163/alt.v16n1.2021.05.

The article analyzes the ways in which service-learning (SL) projects in schools in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, Argentina delivering the Diploma Program (PD) of the International Baccalaureate (IB). Through a qualitative study, which combines in-depth interviews with institutional agents, documentary analysis and classroom observations in state and private schools affiliated to the Program, the different senses of the activities that students, teachers and authorities carry out for the CAS component of the DP are investigated. The results of the study show dissimilar conclusions. When it comes to private schools associated with middle and upper-middle sectors, the SL projects appear oriented towards social action or service, aimed at reducing the deficits of a third party. On the contrary, when it comes to state schools, where students have socioeconomic profiles that are closer to the beneficiaries of those of the private schools, they manage to transcend this orientation to achieve tangible or intangible community assets. This disadvantaged profile is a reason for some state institutions to cancel SA projects that transcend specific and material solidarity actions. The article deduces the importance of institutional agents in the promotion of these projects: although these are spaces, where young people are the protagonists, the framing, empowerment or restriction for their realization will depend on adults, their knowledge, predisposition and valuation regarding SL as pedagogy and practice.

Keywords : Service Learning (SL); educational inequalities; cosmopolitism; internationalization; school management; International Baccalaureate.

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