Fostering active citizenship and ethical professionalism: a service-learning paradigm for translator education

The increasing attention to the professional components of translation competences and the growing emphasis on the social role of translators highlight the need for pedagogical approaches that foster both active citi-zenship and ethical reflection. Service-learning (SL) has emerged as an ef-fective didactic approach, merging academic learning with community service to cultivate socially engaged professionals. This article introduces a novel SL model for translator education, which integrates civic engage-ment within academic curricula. Combining Gouadec’s socio-construc-tivistally-inspired project-based translation pedagogy (2005) and Dewey’s democratic education principles (1916), our model advocates for the po-tential of translation service-learning (TSL) to bridge academic instruction and community-based professional practice. Through the case study of IN.TRA (Inclusive Translation for Community Engagement), a pro bono lan-guage service provider initiated at the University of Bologna in 2021, we analyse the implications of SL for enhancing translator education with global citizenship competences.