Author(s): Anna Goodman
This paper discusses how social engagement in thearchitectural profession fits within broader conceptionsof American citizenship over the course of thetwentieth century. To do so, it provides a historicalaccount of American service learning in the Progressiveand Depression Eras (1890s-1930s) and compares itto community-based design/build education unfoldingin the current era (1990s-present). In so doing, itpoints out the ways in which educators in each periodtook a 鈥減ragmatist鈥 approach to aiding the poor whilepromoting the involvement of youth in service learningactivities. It argues that contemporary programscarry forward one of the key contradictions of theProgressive youth-labor model. Namely, they createa division between those who must perform hardlabor to support themselves and their families andthose with the privilege of temporarily laboring foreducational purposes. It concludes by pointing outhow student design/build efforts use the tropes of 鈥渢hefrontier鈥 and 鈥渟elf-help鈥 to reaffirming the profession鈥檚value in times of social and economic crisis.
Volume Editors
Luis Francisco Rico-Gutierrez & Martha Thorne
ISBN
978-1-944214-08-1