Projects > Ethics and Excellence in Advocacy Project > Field-Building

What Does Field-Building Mean for Service-Learning Advocates?

A field is an area of specialized practice carried out by trained practitioners. While some people question whether service-learning is a field, service-learning can be considered a subspecialty within other areas of expertise, including experiential education and youth service. However, since service-learning for young people 5-18 is emerging as a distinct educational practice, a field-building framework can help advocates organize effective strategies to increase best-practices in teaching service-learning.

What are the elements of a field?
Typically, a field's practitioners have research- and craft-based knowledge, share a common language (including jargon), and have access to ongoing opportunities for professional education. They also acknowledge standards for practice, communicate and exchange information, and enjoy credibility in the eyes of critical constituencies. These common factors are called the elements of a field. Advocates often aim to "build the field" using strategies to improve these field elements to strengthen, scale up, and sustain standard practice.

Eleven essential elements of a field include:

• Identity. A field is based on a distinct and recognized practice that can be clearly described.
• Knowledge base. A field has credible evidence of results, derived from research and practice, as well as of the best ways for practitioners to obtain these results.
• Workforce and leadership. A field has trained practitioners, researchers, and practitioner educators; the structures and institutions for training, credentialing, supporting, and retaining this workforce; incentives and organizations for leaders and leadership development; and ways of attracting a workforce representing the field's components.
• Standard practice. A field has descriptions of standard practice that meet an acceptable level of quality. A common language is used to describe practice. Best-practice demonstrates a capacity to achieve desired outcomes.
• Practice settings. A field needs places that are appropriate and equipped for practice.
• Information exchange. A field has vehicles for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information and knowledge, such as newsletters, conferences, journals, websites, and graduate curricula.
• Infrastructure for collaboration. A field has structures and institutions that facilitate coordinated action, including professional organizations, meetings, networks, and conferences.
• Resources. A field has adequate financial and other resources to ensure standard practice.
• Critical mass of support. A field has the support of key constituencies—organizations and individuals critical to sustaining it—including practitioners, researchers, administrators, policymakers, clients or customers, influential leaders, and others.
• Advocates. A field has adherents who work to foster critical constituencies' support, garner good will, secure assistance, and ensure an appropriate policy context at all levels of government and within pertinent institutions.
• Systemic support. A field also has systemic support, including appropriate public policy as well as incentives that encourage practitioners to learn and use standard practice.

What are some examples of field-building strategies?
The following table offers some examples of specific strategies used for field-building.

What do field-builders do?
Effective "field-builders" must pursue the above strategies simultaneously and in relation to one another. For instance, developing a credible knowledge base is needed to strengthen standard practice, and enlarging stakeholder support is crucial to creating a favorable policy climate.

However, field-building activities can create inevitable dilemmas, such as when efforts to broaden practice use make maintaining high practice standards more difficult. Field builders must work intentionally to pursue the right mix of field-building approaches.

How can a field-building framework be used?
Using a field-building framework, advocates assess what specific strategies are needed to strengthen various field elements, which strategies have priority, how to leverage current efforts, and which organizations (or groups of organizations) are best suited for leading new work.