This eighth volume in the Advances in Service-Learning Research series includes eight essays selected from manuscripts submitted by participants in the seventh annual conference of the International Association of Research in Service-Learning and Community Engagement, held in Tampa, Florida, in October, 2007. The volume builds upon the theme of that conference: "Sustainability and Scholarship: Research and the K-20 Continuum," bringing together the work of scholars from K-12 and higher education to argue for the connection between rigorous and purposeful research and sustainable service-learning and civic engagement. Articles range from models for program-level assessment to examples of significant field-based research projects to approaches to advance discipline-based sustainable impacts to connections between civic education and sustainable communities. Voices of community partners, students, faculty members, administrators, and discipline-based organizations are part of the conversation, and each of the essays raises important challenges for future research that can help to shape, document, and sustain the important impacts of work in this field.
