Perception of university students about the embodiment of service-learning in the curriculum as a social economy pedagogical instrument

This paper discusses the pedagogical methodology of service-learning and its inclusion in the university academic curriculum. Society beholds in apathy the increase in social pain and the atmosphere of uncertainty, social fragmentation, poverty and absence of feelings of harmony, cooperation, and altruism. The target population of our study were the students from the University of Minho. The study resorts to the quantitative approach and uses a questionnaire. Evidence shows that older and higher level academic students are more sensitive to the integration of service-learning into the academic curriculum. Although strangeness persists in their curricular inclusion in some courses, all students consider service-learning as an instrument of intrapersonal and interpersonal development. The theme and objectives of this work are relevant because it features a curricular approach to the holistic development of the student and the community, through which one learns to serve and serves to learn.