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Plenty of news by the end of 2025!
New Handbook on Solidarity Service-Learning in Higher Education
Recently published and available in English and Spanish, the handbook Service-Learning in Higher Education. Volume 1 is a new work by María Nieves Tapia, founder and director of CLAYSS, who worked in collaboration with Alba González, Andrés Peregalli and Alejandra Batista.
It aims to provide concrete suggestions on how to develop and plan projects, key points to analyze experiences already implemented or are underway, and numerous concrete examples of best practices worldwide.
English version:https://www.uniservitate.org/2025/10/31/solidarity-service-learning-in-higher-education-volume-1/
Spanish version:https://uniservitate.org/resources/07_Manual_Uniservitate_ESP.pdf
We celebrate the publication of “Escolas para o encontro” [Portuguese version of the second edition of “Escuelas para el encuentro”], by María Nieves Tapia, with Graciela del Campo and Alejandro Gimelli, the new publication in Portuguese, published together with the FTD Educação publishing house, a fact that strengthens the meeting spaces promoted by the Service Learning Brazilian Network and encourages the work with our sister country.
Download the book in its Portuguese version: https://asset.cloudinary.com/dpzykj3hw/8057a9911faae140d8aa7a96802c7cc4
Download the book in Spanish: https://www.clayss.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/CLAYSS_Escuelas-para-el-Encuentro-2da.-edicion.pdf
El giro comunitario en el service-learning university. “Inclusión y sostenibilidad [Community Shift in University Service-Learning. Inclusion and Sustainability]” is a collective work, edited by Rosa M. Rodríguez-Izquierdo and Mar Lorenzo Moledo (Octaedro, 2023), which makes a significant contribution to the consolidation of service-learning as a pedagogical approach to social transformation in universities. However, its greatest value is the conceptual shift it advocates: shifting the focus away from the university as the sole knowledge provider and placing the community as co-builder, interlocutor and political subject of the educational process.
The book consists of seven chapters written by researchers from different universities and geographical contexts. Based on different perspectives, such as popular education, sustainability studies, critical epistemology, and action research, the texts converge on a central premise: the quality of solidarity service-learning depends on the real and sustained participation of the community in all stages of the process. This “community shift” means replacing the welfare or instrumental logic that still prevails in many university projects with an ethic of reciprocity, equity and shared transformation.
The chapter by Rodríguez-Izquierdo that introduces the volume, “The value of collaboration in service-learning projects: the perspective of social agents,” constitutes one of the book’s conceptual core themes. Through a qualitative study with Andalusian social agents, the author critically analyzes the tensions between university and community, stressing the persistence of transactional relationships in which the benefit rests disproportionately on the university. In contrast, she proposes advancing towards transformational relationships based on trust and the collective construction of knowledge. The reading is enlightening as it reveals that, despite the “social engagement” discourse, universities still maintain a hegemonic role that limits community autonomy.
Other chapters, such as those by Santos Rego, Mella-Núñez and Míguez-Salina, explore the idea of university-community reciprocity as a requirement for joint educational development. From a European perspective, these authors establish a relationship between solidarity service-learning, university social responsibility and the 2030 Agenda. However, they point out the risk of empty institutionalization if it is not accompanied by cultural change within universities. Likewise, Sotelino et al. emphasize that sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals only make sense if they are linked to concrete practices of community engagement.
Another unique contribution is made by Benítez-Jaén and Caraballo-Román, who recover Latin American popular education as the original matrix of service-learning. Their decolonial perspective destabilizes the Eurocentric and technocratic view that often dominates the literature, reminding us that participatory methodologies have a political background linked to social justice, liberation, and critical pedagogy. This chapter broadens the interpretation of the “community turn” to an epistemological dimension: the need to recognize other ways of producing knowledge and rationalities, both community-based and non-hegemonic.
Theoretically, the book is grounded in the transformational learning and critical pedagogy movements, engaging in dialogue with authors such as Butin, Clayton, Bringle, and Mitchell. The notion of “transformative collaboration” that runs throughout the work opposes the neoliberal logic of the university-business model, which measures educational quality in terms of efficiency or productivity. Instead, it advocates a networked university, open to co-creation and mutual learning with social actors. In this sense, the work offers a solid foundation to rethink university extension as a disciplinary practice, rather than a peripheral or voluntary activity.
The community shift in academic service-learning is a valuable work for those seeking to rethink the role of the university beyond the rhetoric of service. It proposes a higher education system capable of breaking with the extractivist paradigm of academic knowledge and building new alliances based on horizontality. The work invites us to rethink the social function of the university in terms of reciprocity and justice, reminding us that there is no true learning without community, and that knowledge only makes sense when it serves to liberate rather than reproduce inequalities.
Link to publications [in Spanish]: https://octaedro.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9788419900241.pdf
Extensão na Universidade Católica: Aprendizagem e Serviço [Extension at the Catholic University: Learning and Service] is a publication coordinated by Professor Rodrigo de Andrade. The work also contains contributions from Isabel Tresca, Gabriela Malacrida and Candelaria Ferrara, from the CLAYSS team, who wrote especially for this book.
Inspired by the Global Compact on Education and Pope Francis’ invitation to train people for service, this work presents Service-Learning as a preferential pedagogical resource to develop University Extension activities in Catholic Universities. It is divided into three parts: 1) The place of extension in the Catholic university mission; 2) Service-learning as a pedagogy for Catholic outreach; and 3) Inspiring experiences. The book also combines conceptual foundations, methodological proposals, and concrete experiences that show the potential of outreach concerning the comprehensive preparation of critical, ethical, and supportive individuals who are capable of transforming realities and promoting the common good. It is a valuable contribution for educators and administrators who wish to establish outreach as a structural pillar of the Catholic university’s mission.
The result of a collaborative effort with the support of PUCPR and published by PUCPRess, it can be accessed free of charge at this link in [Portuguese]: https://www.pucpress.com.br/publicacoes/extensao-na-universidade-catolica-aprendizagem-e-servico
Free-download Resources on CLAYSS Website
For those working in education who want to add value to their initiatives, or research on the results of projects implemented worldwide, or want to know how to implement a solidarity service-learning project in their institution for their community, with their students. Handbooks, case studies and research available in different languages: https://www.clayss.org/en/resources/
Uniservitate collection
Mainly focused on Catholic Higher Education, but open to specialists in solidarity service-learning and the general public interested in education and social change. The collection is available on the Uniservitate website:
In Spanish https://www.uniservitate.org/es/publicaciones/
In English https://www.uniservitate.org/publications/
Uniservitate Repository with More than 900 Free-access Items!
Theoretical and practical resources on solidarity service-learning and its spiritual dimension in higher education, from a multicultural perspective. Here you have free access to download different resources – texts, images, and videos: https://repository.uniservitate.org/es/