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Conceptualizing ICEL

Vol. 29 No. 2: Special Issue on International Community-Engaged Learning (ICEL)

Embedding Community Engagement Within Indian Higher Education Institutions’ Functions: Insights on Community-Engaged Learning

  • Wafa Singh
  • Raisuyah Bhagwan
  • Manju Singh
Submitted
June 7, 2024
Published
2025-07-02

Abstract

Despite the growing volume of global research on community engagement and its outcomes, studies emerging from the Global South, particularly India, are sparse. This article makes a valuable contribution toward enhancing a scholarly understanding of engagement in India by highlighting the findings made through a qualitative study at eight Indian higher education institutions (HEIs). This inquiry explored the diverse modalities of the embedment of community engagement (CE) within HEI functions (teaching, research, and service), transforming these functions into engaged scholarship and thus creating community-engaged learning (CEL) opportunities through the introduction of socially relevant courses, immersive pedagogies, coconstruction of new knowledge for community welfare, and social outreach interventions. The article draws on these insights to propose a conceptual model to guide global HEIs toward transforming conventional scholarship into engaged scholarship, thereby yielding key CEL outcomes and thus contributing to a simple but pragmatic understanding of international CEL.