Inadvertent alienation: A rhetorical analysis of pro -service -learning arguments that backfire

A rhetorical analysis of eight texts---seven essays and one book---demonstrates how certain arguments for service-learning in higher education may have a negative effect on academic faculty and other influentials in secular contexts where diversity and pluralism are highly valued. An analysis of two additional texts that, it is argued, are more likely to persuade certain educators to accept service-learning concludes the study. The analysis attends to the tropes, topoi, and other rhetorical features and devices deployed by the texts' creators to argue for the adoption in higher education of the writers' particular conceptualizations of service-learning. Discussion of the still-uncertain or even negative status of service-learning in some colleges and universities and of objections to service-learning from a sizable segment of higher education is woven through the rhetorical analysis in order to highlight features of the exemplar texts.;The study groups the negative exemplar texts into categories according to the justification for service-learning that generates each text's argument. These justifications are that colleges and universities should adopt service-learning because they must (1) prepare students for democratic citizenship, (2) advance the cause of social justice, and (3) form and elevate students' moral values. Finally, the study predicts that the most persuasive arguments for service-learning in the broadest possible range of higher education institutions will be those that consider the academic sensibilities, interests, and concerns of their audiences. It is recommended that service-learning advocates hinge their arguments for service-learning in higher education on the traditional, three-part mission of the university: teaching, research, and service, and follow conventions of academic argument.