The Learner Research Network

Student Critical Reflection on Service Learning in Post-Disaster Puerto Rico: Constructing Competency Development, Cultural Humility, and Professional Identity

There is a growing body of evidence that supports the use of critical reflection in social work education to develop self-awareness, support the practice of cultural humility, and manage the influence of power, privilege, and values in professional practice. Within the context of disaster responses, social workers play vital roles in engaging, assessing, and intervening with communities. However, disasters may exacerbate existing inequalities, and disaster responses may fail to recognize a community’s shared knowledge, expertise, values, and agency. This qualitative study examined the reflections of nine graduate social work students from a public university in the Midwest region of the US, following a service learning course focused on disaster relief work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The course linked critical reflection and service activities in the Caño Martín Peña communities located in the center of San Juan. Service activities included debris removal, cleanup, and painting of a community building that served as a hub for communication and distribution of food, water, medicine, and supplies. Students also engaged in dialogue, daily group debriefings, and journaling. Following completion of the course, students wrote articles critically reflecting on their assumptions, experiences, and learning processes. A qualitative analysis of students’ activities revealed four themes in student learning: (1) cognitive processes, (2) affective processes, (3) demonstration of cultural humility, and (4) professional identity development. Findings support the use of critical reflection as a valuable pedagogical tool to teach students how to practice reflexivity and prepare for the complexities of professional practice.

Situated within a post-disaster, colonial context in Puerto Rico, our work responds to calls for pedagogical development that moves beyond technical competency toward reflexive, justice-oriented practice. In this study, we examined how structured critical reflection within global service-learning shapes student learning and professional development. This work gives voice to the lived realities of communities in Puerto Rico, highlighting their resistance and the enduring impacts of colonial occupation. It also demonstrates the necessity of interrogating power and privilege embedded within dominant narratives.

Unlike traditional service-learning models that tend to prioritize exposure or service outcomes, we elevate dialogue, critical reflection, and action as core mechanisms through which learning occurs. This approach requires conceptualization of community engagement in ways that prioritize antihierarchical, antihegemonic, and anticolonial framings and stances within relationships of respect and reciprocity. When critical reflection is intentionally designed and embedded throughout the learning process, students develop enhanced capacities for engagement with ambiguity, empathy, ethical reasoning, perspective-taking, emotional regulation, and “moving out of their comfort zone.”

This study extends the field in significant ways. First, it advances critical reflection as a multidimensional pedagogical framework that integrates cognitive and affective processes; learning occurs through the interplay of emotional attunement, self-awareness, questioning assumptions, deconstructing, and reconstructing meaning. Second, it advances theoretical understandings of transformative learning within contexts shaped by injustice and colonial power. Third, it provides evidence that links structured critical reflection to the development of professional identity, demonstrating how students come to understand their roles as practitioners within broader systems of inequality. These contributions refine existing theoretical frameworks while providing evidence of their application in complex, real-world settings.

We believe the implications of this work are significant. The study holds interdisciplinary relevance, offering practical insights for fields such as education, leadership development, global studies, nursing, and public health, in addition to social work. Critically reflective, community-centered approaches require intentional shifts away from expert-driven interventions, particularly in disaster contexts where external actors may unintentionally reproduce harm. Finally, this work underscores the responsibility of higher education to engage with global inequality and complex problems in ways that promote social, racial, economic, and environmental justice.

—Dee Ann Sherwood, Ph.D., MSW, MPA