%0 Journal Article
%T The Definition of Community: A Student Perspective
%A Hunter Link
%A Taylor McNally
%A Ariel Sayre
%A Rachel Schmidt
%J Partnerships : A Journal of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement
%D 2012
%I University of North Carolina at Greensboro
%R 10.7253/partj.v0i0.440
%X When designing service-learning programs, catch-words like ¡®community engagement¡¯ and ¡®community partners¡¯ comes to mind. As undergraduate students seeking funding for research-service projects abroad, we are told to work with and through ¡®the community¡¯ and to have ¡®community-centered¡¯ project design. The dominant rhetoric gives rise to a homogenizing and simplifying view of ¡®community¡¯ that is implicit to ¡®community engagement¡¯ initiatives. In June 2010, we traveled to Belize on a research grant with the goal of installing slow-sand water filters in a rural community. Our perceptions of ¡®community¡¯ profoundly shaped the way we designed and implemented our project, and we quickly found that our initial conception of the ¡®community¡¯ was incorrect. We saw that there is a large difference between how the ¡®community¡¯ is treated in service-learning discourse and actual on-the-ground realities. This paper offers a unique student perspective on the definition of ¡®community.¡¯ We hope that other students will learn from our experiences and that educators will be able to more critically examine how the concept of ¡®community¡¯ is presented to students.   KEYWORDS service-learning; community engagement; definition of community; student perspective
%U https://libjournal.uncg.edu/index.php/prt/article/view/440