University as an Engaged Community. Service-Learning as a formative and transformative practice

Abstract

Higher educative institutions are currently facing an historical period of radical changes, both regarding their pedagogical methodologies and the purposes of their educative action. This article offers a critical discussion of some problematic issues specifically related to the university teaching, such as its growing bureaucratization, its reduction to a mere process of information transmission, and its perceived social irrelevance. Thus, by questioning the scope and aim of the universities studies, both in diachronic and synchronic perspective, the article argues for the necessity of merging new didactic methods with the profound consciousness of the university social responsibility.