THE SERVICE-LEARNING STRUGGLE

ers and practitioners have struggled to determine how to best characterize service-learning. In 1979, Robert Sigmon defined service-learning as an experiential education approach that is premised on "reciproca1learning " (Sigmon, 1979). He sug-gested that because learning flows from service activities, both those who provide service and those who receive it "learn" from the experience. In Sigmon's view, service-learning oc-curs only when both the providers and recipients of service benefit from the activities. Today, however, the term "service-learning " has been used to characterize a wide array of experiential education endeav-ors, from volunteer and community service projects to field The Corporation for National Service provides a narrower definition that sees service-learning as a "method under which students learn and develop through active participation in... thoughtfully organized service experiences that meet ac-tual community needs, that [are] integrated into the students' academic curriculum or provide structured time for [reflec-tion, and] that enhance what is taught in school by extending student learning beyond the classroom and into the commu-nity... " (Corporation for National and Community Service, 1990). The confounding use of the service-learning term may be one reason why research on the impacts of service-learn-ing has been difficult to conduct. In 1989, Honnet and Poulsen developed the Wingsprea