Unity Through Community Service Activities: Strategies to Bridge Ethnic and Cultural Divides

Community service work is rapidly becoming a defining factor in how individuals interact with each other, and more importantly, how people define and achieve meaning within their own lives. This text addresses the power of community service work and its guiding principles to bridge cultural divides, facilitate inter ethnic group development, and reduce ethnocentrism and ethnic conflict. Simply stated, it defines ways in which people of different cultures and ethnicity can learn to appreciate their diversity while using that strength to improve their communities. Each chapter explores different ways in which inter ethnic group relationships can be improved through community service work, exploring such topics as how community service work can foster cultural tolerance and interdependency; the ways in which primitive group work has always been a necessary factor in human evolution and survival; the dynamic relationship between collaborative learning and community service work; the influences of technology on the quality of interpersonal and group service relationships; reducing hate crimes via community service work in multi ethnic student populations; and the role of community service work in promoting collectivist rather than individualist cultural mindsets.