Academic Service Learning (ASL) can be an ideal pedagogical model for multicultural education and social studies courses, as it allows preservice teachers to organically construct their understandings with regard to both subject and learner and in relationship to important civic learning goals. Since 2004, the two of us, both teacher educators at public institutions of higher education in different states and different contexts, have been designing, refining, and implementing similar elementary social studies education courses which center on academic service-learning. We have had multiple goals during this process. In our respective courses, we have tried to design a powerful service learning experience for preservice elementary teachers and their students that would enhance specific social studies learning objectives, model effective service learning practice, and could be implemented using limited resources. We have also been interested in creating a dialogue around important civic issues that would be truly intergenerational and cross-cultural by following the words of Wade (2000), who encourages social studies teachers, when possible, to “seek projects in which the boundaries between server and served become blurred through mutual goal setting and collaboration” (p. 95).
