Reducing Academic Achievement Gaps: The Role of Community Service and Service-Learning

Three large and diverse data sets were used to study the relations among 6th-12th grade students' community service and service-learning experiences, academic success, and socioeconomic status (SES). Principals in high-poverty, urban, and majority nonwhite schools were more likely to judge service-learning's impact on student attendance, engagement, and academic achievement as very positive. Students with higher levels of service/service-learning reported higher grades, attendance, and other academic success outcomes. Low-SES students with service/service-learning scored better on most academic success variables than their low-SES peers with less or no service or service-learning. Service-learning may be especially attractive to principals of low-SES schools, in part because it may be related to higher achievement generally and to smaller achievement gaps between higher- and lower-income students.