Service-learning is often framed as a pedagogical perspective and instructional tool that can help “privileged” students gain greater insight into the life experience and perspectives of “others,” namely those “served” in the service-learning arrangement. Central to this positive conception of service-learning is a binary between “privileged server” and “underprivileged recipient” or an “us/them” dichotomy. Recently, this dichotomy has been questioned by some researchers as problematic to a transformative understanding of service-learning (Hourigan 1998; Flower 2002; Novek 2000).

Central to the critique of the binary of “server/served” is its overly simplistic approach to understanding those involved in the service-learning relationship. Rather than seeing the complexity and multi-positional points of view from which people in service-learning relationships operate, this dichotomy remains too blunt to reveal the variety of identities that both “servers” and the “served” actually live within. While this dichotomy might be rhetorically helpful for those arranging service-learning assignments, it may significantly mask the full identities of those participating in a service-learning experience. What does it mean to the “privileged student server” to share characteristics with the “underprivileged served” service-learning community? How do students who occupy both privileged and underprivileged status understand themselves and their multiple identity categories through working in a service-learning situation that puts them in the position to “serve” communities that represent their backgrounds prior to college?