Serving Ourselves: How the Discourse on Community Engagement Privileges the University over the Community

Abstract

Using methods of discourse analysis, I analyzed examples of the word "community" from 25 of the most recent articles in the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning.This analysis uncovered a variety of ways in which the university appears to be privileged over the community in the discourse of higher education community-based engagement.This paper discusses four themes emerging from the analysis that represent this privileging: community as a means by which the university enhances its academic work; community as a recipient of influence by the university; community as a place which the university makes better; and community as a factor in the financial interest of the university.By identifying these subtle yet troubling themes, I aim to inspire more community-focused research as well as to encourage scholars to reflect critically on how their discourses shape an evolving understanding of communityengaged practice.Since Ernest Boyer (1990) recommended that university scholarship become more engaged, the higher education landscape has been changing.Recognizing the academic, societal, and economic disconnect between themselves and the neighbourhoods in which they are situated, many higher education institutions are turning to campus-community partnerships as one way to address this disconnect (d' Arlach, Sanchez, & Feuer, 2009;Strand, Marullo, Cutforth, Stoecker, & Donohue, 2003).This increase in campus-community partnerships results in an increase in research, creating discourse communities that shape and influence understandings of community engagement in higher education.In this context, however, these discourse communities are perhaps counterproductively incestuous, producing scholarship written by and for scholars, and that excludes participation by the very "community" they intend to serve.Considering Saltmarsh, Hartley, and Clayton's (2008) recent concerns related to why civic engagement in higher education appears to be stalling, one has to ask, is there indeed a privileged epistemology of the academy that runs counter to principles of community engagement?If so, is this privilege being reinforced through a discourse that one would expect to be sympathetic to the voice of the community?To answer this question, I investigate the discourse of community engagement in higher education, and in particular in community service learning, the most popular form of campus-community engagement, and analyze critically how scholars are creating and reinforcing certain understandings in the field. How are scholars representing the concept of com-Fall 2011, pp.

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