MAKE IT LAST FOREVER: THE ... - National Service Resource Center

Department of Education. The policies, programs, and procedures in a school are connected in numerous ways to each of these
entities, making for a confusing accountability dynamic, bureaucratic procedural processes, and intricate funding nuances.
Add to this the fact that service learning has primarily been a federally-initiated and -funded movement and one is able to see
clearly the difficulty that local schools and districts have in infusing service-learning into a well-established system of teaching and
learning.
Nevertheless, numerous approaches to institutionalizing service-learning are being attempted, all of which are being used to
legitimize its practice, communicate its effectiveness, and positively impact student performance. As schools and districts are
successful in doing so, service-learning indeed becomes institutionalized. When its practice becomes so widespread that faculty
turnover will not cause the practice to cease, the practice is likely to be institutionalized. The table below shows some common ways
of describing institutionalized practices as compared with those which are not yet embraced systematically.
AN INSTITUTIONALIZED A MARGINALIZED
PRACTICE IS: PRACTICE IS:
Routine Occasional
Widespread Isolated
Legitimized Unaccepted
Expected Uncertain
Supported Weak
Permanent Temporary
Resilient At-Risk
There have been prior efforts to identify some of the factors in institutionalization, some of which pertain to service-learning.
Much of the conceptual framework stems from organizational change theory, which has to do with how change occurs within systems.
Miles (1983) presented one of the earliest articulations of indicators of institutionalization in service-learning. Some of the
important issues include:
• Stability of program and staff leadership • Administrative pressure
• Influence of innovation advocate • User practice mastery
• Teacher-administrator harmony • Student impact
• Percentage of use • User commitment
• Stabilization of use • Availability of assistance
• Environmental consistency
Anderson (1993) identified six elements of change in her examination of how new educational ideas are explored and
institutionalized. These include:
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