Transforming lives : exploring eight ways of learning in arts-based service learning with Australian Aboriginal communities

Within the fields of community music and community arts in Australia, community service learning is gaining prominence as a key pedagogical strategy that connects community service with structured reflection and learning activities (Siebenaler 2005). Arts-based service learning is increasingly being used to bring together university students and community members to work on community-led projects of cultural significance. This arts focus combines well with the service-learning approach as it promotes what Rendon (2009) calls sentipensante (sensing/thinking) pedagogy. Sentipensante pedagogy aims to disrupt entrenched belief systems that divide knowing, thinking, and feeling. Such disruption can bring to light experiences that are threshold and transformative