The polysemy in the “criticism” concept and the variety of ways in which University Service-Learning (USL) can be understood have made us propose a systematic review. The goal of this review has been to understand the value of “CRITICISM” as the structural axis and the educational principle on which the USL pedagogical model is founded. The procedures recommended by PRISMA 2020 have been followed to elaborate a protocol with the 27-item checklist. The process to identify the articles included a systematic search in the Web of Science (Wos) and Scopus databases. The final selection included 144 documents that were analyzed in depth. The findings allow us to account for some pedagogical activism in the way of understanding what we call “criticism”. Some degree of depoliticization and eurocentrism is observed in this concept, besides an emphasis on methodology, rather than on the political, ethical, social and pedagogical aspects.