The Deweyan Approach to Learning Victim Advocacy: Seeing Beyond Stigmas and Facilitating Second Chances

Authors

Ashley Peake Wellman, University of Central Missouri
Sherri DioGuardi, University of Central Missouri

Abstract

Fundamentally, criminal justice practitioners are public safety promoters, yet safety can be compromised if a divide exists between them and the communities they serve. The best way to train future criminal justice practitioners may be found in the progressive education proposed by John Dewey in the early 20th-century. Dewey’s experiential approach, specifically service-learning, has gained traction as an effective teaching tool for broadening perspectives, deepening understanding of diverse populations, and fostering higher order reasoning, all of which are critical characteristics for criminal justice professionals as well as for all American citizens. Undergraduate students participated in service-learning during a semester-long honors course on victim advocacy, and this qualitative study used a phenomenological approach to explore whether their lived experiences, as revealed in reflective responses to open-ended questions, effectuated learning. Findings were that service-learning involvement generated community commitment and instilled a deeper sense of civic responsibility, both of which have the potential to better promote public safety.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Wellman, Ashley Peake and DioGuardi, Sherri (2018) "The Deweyan Approach to Learning Victim Advocacy: Seeing Beyond Stigmas and Facilitating Second Chances," Qualitative Criminology (QC): Vol. 6: No. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/qc/vol6/iss1/3