"A much needed book for both scholars and practitioners. It covers a wide range of topics dealing with volunteering.... A major contribution." —Virginia Hodgkinson, Center for Voluntary Organizations and Service
(Virginia Hodgkinson, Center for Voluntary Organizations and Service 2008)
This book tells you everything you ever wanted to know about who volunteers and why, and probably a bit more besides. Well, actually, it tells you everything that is known or measured about why different people volunteer, whilst also highlighting the many remaining questions where data has yet to be collected. With over five hundred pages of text crammed full of survey data and references to existing studies (plus another 150 or so pages of appendices and references), this must be one of the most comprehensive publications on volunteering to date.
Its sheer size and level of detail mean that this is not a book to sit down and attempt to read in one sitting, but it is certainly a book to keep close to hand and to dip into as and when you can. I will certainly be keeping it on my desk, to be thumbed through and referred to when exploring the different aspects of volunteering that it covers. For a UK audience, however, it is worth pointing out that although the book does bring in studies from around the world, it is heavily weighted to data from the US.
The book is divided into six parts, with the bulk being devoted to an exploration of why people volunteer, or more specifically why some people volunteer more than others. In considering this question, the book divides its analysis into three main groups of explanations. Each group contains a number of different theories, most with numerous (and sometimes contradictory) empirical studies either giving weight to or against these theories.
The first group of explanations is those based on ideas of 'subjective dispositions', which argue that individuals' personalities, motivations and values can all influence whether or not people volunteer. Here, for example (and perhaps unsurprisingly given their sociological backgrounds), the authors largely dismiss the psychologists' arguments that motivations alone can be used to explain patterns of volunteering, arguing instead that understanding motives is only the beginning of understanding why some people volunteer and others do not.
The second group of explanations focuses on 'individual resources', and explores how factors such as socio-economic status, time, health, gender and race can influence whether or not people volunteer. For example, women are more likely to volunteer than men, although they do not volunteer more hours. This may in part be due to cultural factors (for example the proposition that women tend to be the more empathetic gender) but also may be due to social practices (it is known that women are more likely to attend church and that church attendance influences volunteering), and the influence of other roles women perform (for example mothers get involved in volunteering opportunities through their children's school and clubs).
The third group of explanations looks at the social context of volunteering, including life course, social resources, volunteer recruitment practices and regional location, to argue that volunteering is influenced and structured by the organisational and institutional environment. This part of the book contains chapters on trends in volunteering and international comparisons, focusing not on 'describing differences' over time or space but on 'providing explanation'.
The book also includes sections on the organisation of volunteering, the impact of volunteering on volunteers, and a discussion on the definition of volunteering. Overall, it gives a comprehensive and accessible summary that provides evidence for many long-held assumptions about volunteering, whilst also challenging some of those assumptions. For example, rather than uphold the widely held view that people are becoming less inclined to volunteer, the authors use survey data to conclude that, whilst volunteering may be changing, there is 'no cause for concern… the volunteer spirit is not diminished'.
The book does not provide any simple answers or explanations as to why some people volunteer more than others – at the end of it I am still not sure what the answer is. But this is because it is a complex question and it is not possible to single out one or two factors to explain volunteering. Despite the absence of easy answers, I like this book not least because I agree with the authors' belief that volunteering and activism are part of the same phenomenon, despite the tendency (particularly in lay discourses) to depoliticize volunteering. This is of increasing importance as governments around the world get more involved in volunteering, most commonly adopting a definition of volunteering that is closer to caring than to activism with the potential to encourage, as the authors note, only 'safe, non-controversial and "non-political" volunteering at the expenses of advocacy volunteering and social activism'.Angela Ellis Paine, Institute for Volunteering Research, Philanthropy UK, September 2008, Issue 34
(Angela Ellis Paine, Institute for Volunteering Research
Philanthropy UK 2009)
"This book tells you everything you ever wanted to know about who volunteers and why... With over five hundred pages of text crammed full of survey data and references to existing studies (plus another 150 or so pages of appendices and references), this must be one of the most comprehensive publications on volunteering to date." —Angela Ellis Paine, Institute for Volunteering Research, Philanthropy UK Newsletter, September 2008
(Angela Ellis Paine, Institute for Volunteering Research
Philanthropy UK Newsletter )
Sociologists Musick (Univ. of Texas) and Wilson (Duke Univ.) offer a fairly comprehensive review of the current state of the art in the use of volunteers in the US, with one chapter addressing international issues. Twenty-two chapters arranged into six sections focus on definition, theories that address volunteer motivation, theories that address noninvolvement in voluntary behavior, the social context of volunteering, who volunteers for what types of service, and outcomes and consequences for the volunteer. The authors, who are well qualified in this area, pay little attention to the fairly substantial body of practical program evaluations common from the 1960s to the 1990s. Their writing style, which is clear but complex and academic in tone, will be beyond the average reader in some sections. Well referenced and indexed. Summing Up: Recommended. Libraries serving departments of counseling, sociology, or social work, upper-division undergraduates and above. --ChoiceR. T. Sigler, emeritus, University of Alabama, , Feb. 2009
(R. T. Sigler, emeritus, University of Alabama )
"Sociologists Musick (Univ. of Texas) and Wilson (Duke Univ.) offer a fairly comprehensive review of the current state of the art in the use of volunteers in the US, with one chapter addressing international issues.... Well referenced and indexed. Summing Up: Recommended. Libraries serving departments of counseling, sociology, or social work, upper-division undergraduates and above." —Choice, February 2009
(
Choice )
"... What Musick and Wilson did is short of a miracle. They assembled hundreds of sources and shed bright light on a major theme in the field of studying volunteering. Every scholar and every student of volunteering will have to start with this comprehensive volume. This book is a blessing to all volunteer scholars. I take my hat off to the authors." —Ram A. Cnaan, University of Pennsylvania, NONPROFIT & VOLUNTARY SEC QTLY, Vol. 38.3 2009
(Ram A. Cnaan, University of Pennsylvania
NONPROFIT & VOLUNTARY SEC QTLY )
"The opening chapters of the volume are enticing and lucid. The authors ground the sociological understanding of volunteerism in sociology's foundational concern with altruism. They note that recent interest in volunteerism has been sparked not only by a political milieu in which government programs encourage civic involvement in the public sphere but also by theoretical shifts in the understanding of work and social movements, as well as by interest in care work, paid and unpaid, advanced by feminist scholars..." —REBECCA A. ALLAHYARI, School for Advanced Research, CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY, Vol. 38.3
(REBECCA A. ALLAHYARI, School for Advanced Research
CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY )
"It is indeed a milestone, the first comprehensive textbook in the study of volunteering, with an impressive review of the literature complemented by the authors' own empirical analyses…Easily accessible, each part and each chapter of the book start with a brief and basic introduction of the main themes, questions, and theories covered. The authors reach a fine balance between 'introduction to the topic' and 'advanced discussion' based on the international state-of-the-art research in the field. They succeed in integrating both quantitative and qualitative research from different disciplines and explain carefully the differences among disciplines, with a focus on sociology, psychology, and economic theories. For these reasons, the book promises to attract a wide readership and is a must-read for anyone who wants an introduction to the study of volunteering." —FEMIDA HANDY / LESLEY HUSTINX, Nonprofit Management & Leadership, vol. 19, no. 4, Summer 2009
(FEMIDA HANDY / LESLEY HUSTINX
Nonprofit Management & Leadership )
