Book excerpt: A major theme of education reform in the United States is that schools should prepare students to live in a democratic society. To this end, 'service learning' is designed to encourage young people to become responsible, caring citizens. At present, however, service learning tends to be restricted to assigning students to community service projects. In this book Cynthia Parsons argues that service learning should be regarded as part of - not additional to - school requirements. She offers a range of alternative, curriculum-based examples of service learning to broaden the understanding and scope of this reform principle.