How structural factors promote instrumental motivations within youth volunteering: a qualitative analysis of volunteer brokerage

Abstract

This article presents a structural, multi-level analysis, showing how volunteering policy, specific volunteering programmes and operational practices in volunteer brokerage organisations promote instrumental motivations in young volunteers. Through evidence drawn from a qualitative study of youth volunteering brokerage workers and volunteering policy-practitioners, it is shown how young people are increasingly pressured into volunteering, and into seeing volunteering as primarily a route into employment. Volunteer recruiters do not challenge these structural factors; instead, employability and easing the transition to work and university form a large part of ‘selling’ volunteering, with young people encouraged to trade their time for experience. It is concluded that these findings fit into a wider theoretical narrative about the changing nature of volunteering, and have the potential to create significant problems for volunteer-involving organisations.

Talking ’bout my generation: generational differences in the attitudes of volunteers at the 2012 Olympic Games

“…Furthering her CV was the main value expressed by Lindy and her previous 'obliged' volunteering was completely consistent with Dean's (2014) analysis of the dominant discourse presented to young people. She had carefully weighed the costs of travel and volunteering against the benefits, and her parents had helped her meet them.…”

“…Holdsworth and Brewis, (2013) adopt the term 'mass credentialism' in describing Universities' view of volunteering as another field in which students can gain a market advantage within the increased marketization of higher education to enhance employability. Dean (2014) confirms this attitude is held by brokers of youth volunteer programmes, such as Millennium Volunteers and International Baccalaureate. He claims that 'the traditional discourse of volunteering as a purely self-sacrificial activity may have become an unrealistic old-fashioned idea' (p. 233).…”

“…Examining if values are changing by generation is more difficult as it requires longitudinal studies. For example, Dean's (2014) interviews with 31 brokers of youth volunteer programmes had to rely on interviewees' perceptions of change, and it is not clear over what period they had observed change. Handy et al's (2010) examination of student volunteering could only imply a change was taking place.…”

“…He speculates if this is due to 'official pressure', by which he presumably means the type identified by Dean (2014) and Holdworth and Brewis (2013), or by an 'undergirding of a broader civic infrastructure of community organisations' by which he means those which nurture and develop values traditionally underpinning volunteering (Oesterle, et al, 2004). This illustrates that without a longitudinal data set measuring changing values Putnam, and others, have to speculate about their role in social change.…”

Class Diversity and Youth Volunteering in the United Kingdom

“…Anyone who needed support to get them that something extra, anyone from poorer areas is going to find it really tough. (Jill, youth volunteering worker, Croft) Kaia expressed regret to me that she referred to volunteers in such terms as "it's a number" (see above), but explained how due to time constraints and targets set by her managers and funders, sometimes brokerage workers had to take this instrumental view of the young people they were working with (see Dean, 2014). While all expressed the benefits of volunteering, staff realized that not every event could be lifechanging for every young volunteer.…”