Theses and Dissertations
Issuing Body
Mississippi State University
Advisor
Hoffman, David M.
Committee Member
Tijerina, Milena Melo
Committee Member
Copeland, Toni
Date of Degree
12-13-2019
Original embargo terms
Visible to MSU only for 3 Years
Document Type
Graduate Thesis - Open Access
Major
Applied Anthropology
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
College
College of Arts and Sciences
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures
Department
Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures
Abstract
Service to the community is a key element in mission statements of public and private universities. In the 21st century, higher education shifted by establishing community engagement offices and encouraging student community service through service-learning. Previous literature indicated that experiential learning increased ethnocultural empathy and volunteerism among college students. This study compares two experiential learning programs’ influence on the ethnocultural empathy development among college students at Mississippi College, a private, religious-affiliated university to explore how this empathy increases community service. 38 students were asked to complete the Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy (Wang et al. 2003) and were interviewed about their service-learning and mission experience. This study found that service-learning students develop more cultural empathy than mission trip students. These findings show that applying anthropological methods to evaluating service-learning programming can help understand how it develops cultural empathy and give insight into how to continue to increase intercultural competence among students.
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/11668/16406
Recommended Citation
Marshall, Victoria Rose, "Service and empathy: a comparison study of intercultural experiences among students at Mississippi College" (2019). Theses and Dissertations. 3926.
https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td/3926
Comments
cultural applied anthropology