Growing the Volunteer Pool: Identifying Non-Volunteers Most Likely to Volunteer

There are ongoing management and societal challenges affecting volunteering participation. These place a premium on organizations identifying individuals that currently do not volunteer but have the willingness and capacity to do so, the “Potentials”. Supplementing the limited non-volunteer literature, we seek to quantify this potential volunteer pool using constructs aligned to the willingness, capability and availability dimensions from Meijs et al.’s (Volunt Action 8:36–54, 2006) volunteerability framework. Using binary logistic regression testing with a nationally representative sample of Australian volunteers and non-volunteers, we found partial support for the framework’s willingness and capability dimensions determining volunteer status. We then applied a predictive equation to the non-volunteer sample to calculate their percentage likelihood of volunteering, to identify a cohort of “Potential” volunteers. Further testing revealed statistically significant differences between this cohort compared to other non-volunteers based on various interventions for promoting volunteering. The implications of our novel study and an associated research agenda are discussed.

     

The Role of Father Involvement and Mother Involvement in Adolescents' Psychological Well-being

to Eirini Flouri, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford, Barnett House, 32 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2ER, UK. E-mail: eirini.flouri{at}socres.ox.ac.uk Summary This study of 2,722 British adolescents aged 14–18 yearsexplored whether paternal involvement can protect against lowlevels of well-being even when maternal involvement and riskand protective factors are controlled for. Results showed thatalthough both father and mother involvement contributed significantlyand independently to offspring happiness, father involvementhad a stronger effect. Furthermore, the association betweenfather involvement and happiness was not stronger for sons thanfor daughters. There was no evidence suggesting that familydisruption weakens the association between father involvementand happiness, or that father involvement is more strongly relatedto offspring happiness when mother involvement is low ratherthan high.     

Producing Contradictory Masculine Subject Positions: Narratives of Threat, Homophobia and Bullying in 11–14 Year Old Boys

This paper reports a qualitative analysis of data from a study of masculinity in 11–14 year old boys attending twelve London schools. Forty-five group discussions ( N = 245) and two individual interviews ( N = 78) were conducted. The findings indicate that boys' experiences of school led them to assume that interviews would expose them to ridicule and so threaten their masculinity. Boys were generally more serious and willing to reveal emotions in individual than in group interviews. A key theme in boys' accounts was the importance of being able to present themselves as properly masculine in order to avoid being bullied by other boys by being labeled "gay." The ways in which boys were racialized affected their experiences of school.     

Four Motives for Community Involvement

A conceptual analysis is offered that differentiates four types of motivation for community involvement: egoism, altruism, collectivism, and principlism. Differentiation is based on identification of a unique ultimate goal for each motive. For egoism, the ultimate goal is to increase one's own welfare; for altruism, it is to increase the welfare of another individual or individuals; for collectivism, to increase the welfare of a group; and for principlism, to uphold one or more moral principles. As sources of community involvement, each of these four forms of motivation has its strengths; each also has its weaknesses. More effective efforts to stimulate community involvement may come from strategies that orchestrate motives so that the strengths of one motive can overcome weaknesses of another. Among the various possibilities, strategies that combine appeals to either altruism or collectivism with appeals to principle may be especially promising.