2020

Kimonen, Eija; Nevalainen, Raimo

The aim of this chapter is to examine the changing nature of the pedagogical activities of community-based learning and their authentic learning environments in the United States, India, and China. This analysis, based on a previous historico-hermeneutical study in comparative education, concentrates particularly on the activities of community-based learning and their central pedagogical approaches in a context of social change. With respect to the United States, the primary focus is on experiential education, while in India it is on vocationally productive education, and in China it is on productive labor education. This chapter demonstrates that community-based learning can take place in a variety of learning environments prioritizing the Naturalistic, Sociocultural, Productive, Economic, Martial, Ecological, or Scientific-Technical Dimensions, in accordance with the general direction of political, economic, and social development. The chapter shows that by the mid-20th century these three countries had started to focus efforts on expanding learning environments from schools to the real world outside of schools. In the past five decades, pedagogical approaches and their learning environments have increasingly given special importance to the use of technology-based applications. The study concludes that approaches to community-based learning could provide a way for teachers and communities to prepare students to participate and become engaged in solving local problems.