Enriching Aboriginal Engagement in Schools through Service-learning: The Biidaaban Experience

This paper involves an inquiry into the effects and affects of service learning in a Biidaaban Youth Group (BYG) programme under the auspices of the Biidaaban Community Service Learning centre (BCSL) at a small northern Ontario university. Phenomenological, hermeneutical, and narrative inquiry approaches were applied to interviews with stakeholders in BYG including a First Nations’ parent, a school-aged child, a First Nations’ grandparent and Elder, an education community partner, and a university-student tutor. The concepts of pathic teaching and liberatory service learning help to frame the findings of this study. Analysis of the data evidenced authentic caring for self and other and genuine reciprocity that is transformative and enabled participants to attain a liberatory level of social change and social consciousness as key components of the high quality of service learning that is perceived by those who serve and those who receive service from this unit.