Community-based learning is a teaching methodology and philosophy of reciprocal learning designed to put theory into practice by combining the elements of academic study with interactive community placements or research.

Community-based learning has been recently offered at Smith as an option with the following majors:

• Sociology: Qualitative Social Research Methods
  Professor Myron Glazer's class provides students with the opportunity to learn the techniques of interviewing and participant observation. The substantive focus revolves around issues of social activism in the Northampton community. While students are free to choose their own topic, the instructor, in collaboration with the Director of SOS, provides a wide range of possible research sites. Students learn about the Northampton community as they pursue such topics as: environmental concerns, domestic violence, war and peace, and many others. The course normally enrolls Sociology majors but other students are warmly welcomed.

• Education in the City
  Taught by Professor Samuel Intrator. This course explores how the challenges facing schools in American cities are entwined with social, economic and political conditions present within the urban environment. The essential question asks how have urban educators and policy makers attempted to provide a quality educational experience for youth when issues associated with their social environment often present significant obstacles to teaching and learning? Using relevant social theory to guide our analyses, we will investigate school reform efforts at the macro-level by looking at policy-driven initiatives such as high-stakes testing, vouchers, and privatization. We will also investigate at the local level by exploring the work of teachers, parents, youth workers and reformers. There will be field work opportunities available for students at several locations including the New Leadership Charter School and the Gerena Community Elementary as arranged by the SOS office with Professor Samuel Intrator's students.
  

• Psychology: Adolescent Gender Role Development (cross-listed in Women's Studies)
  This seminar, taught by Laruen E. Duncan, combines readings about adolescence with the practical experience of mentoring an adolescent girl from the local community. In the readings we examine psychological issues girls face in their adolescent years related to topics such as body image, academic achievement, peer and dating relationships, and gender socialization. The mentoring discussions are led by the director of the YWCA mentoring program. The class is taught in the fall, but students continue their mentoring relationship throughout the spring semester. There is an opportunity to register for a 2-credit special studies class during the spring. Recommended prerequisites and permission of the instructor required.
  
  
• Theatre: Confronting Gender, Performing the Body
  Ellen Kaplan's Acting II class looks at the intersection of Gender and Performance, and the effects of "gender scripts" on the ways we learn to play gender roles. We will focus on gender as it is scripted in plays, in the media, in our stereotypes and assumptions about ourselves. One component of the course is doing theatre workshops with pre-adolescent girls. Students in the class travel weekly to Holyoke to work with 24 Girl Scouts. The girls in 4th, 5th and 6th grades participate in a series of theatre games, image work, and guided improvisations based on poetry and folk tales. The Smith students run the workshops, and host the girls at the Smith theatre, where the whole groupl puts on an informal performance of dance and skits, to be shown in December.
  
  

Philosophy: Epistemology: Ways of Knowing
Anthropology: Political Ecology: Domination & Resistance
Economics: Twelve Economic Issues for the Nineties
Smith Science & Math January Teaching Program
and Education courses.

Community-based learning methodology has also been incorporated in special studies, honors theses, and Smith Scholar projects in philosophy and sociology.