CHAPTER 10: Service-Learning and the Culture of Ableism

Imagine reading a journal article that says, “Service-learning is for everybody. Even women can participate in service-learning. Service and women are good for one another. It is clear that college and women go well together. Servicelearning practitioners should seek out women college students to participate in service by identifying places on campus where these students are found.” Many readers would be offended by such an article, but when a journal article said this about people with disabilities, the recommendation went unchallenged by the service-learning community. The journal article said, “It is clear that college and individuals with disabilities go well together” (Shumer, 2001, p. 27). Implicit in this statement is the idea that a person’s aptitude for college might be negated by a disability. The article recommended that servicelearning practitioners seek out college students with disabilities to participate in service by identifying “places on campus where these students are found” (Shumer, 2001, pp. 33). The irony in this recommendation is that students with disabilities are found in virtually every classroom in every school, college, and university in the United States, and the most effective way to involve students with disabilities in service-learning is to engage the entire class or the university community in service-learning.