Service and Learning in pre-service teacher training: from critical educational practices to curriculum institutionalization

Resumen

This paper reviews the current status of service learning that takes place in the context of initial teacher training. We are committed on its inclusion as a pedagogy proposal through a curriculum institutionalization process. For this purpose, its growing importance in articulating the University Social Responsibility which justifies its expansion in university context is herein illustrated. In addition, it becomes explicit the bases that guide both its meaning as its practices, and which determine different kinds of service learning. Several options are identified among others, such as propaedeutic practices or training for professional teaching practice, but critical options based on reflection, social justice and emancipation are also identified. We argue that service learning, at initial teacher training, acquires its full potential from a critical perspective. In this regard, some innovative ways to undertake this task, which focus on schools as a place for the development of such proposal, are advanced here.