According to a new study, adolescents volunteering in the community are not likely to be from single-parent homes nor from poverty-stricken backgrounds.
Disadvantaged children typically are not volunteering during their adolescent years, which affects their prosocial behavior, said Daniel Lichter, a professor of sociology and one of the three researchers who conducted the study.
The study evaluated the long-term effects of poverty and family instability on the prosocial behavior of adolescents by looking at their volunteer work, Lichter said. The research team analyzed data from the 1996 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which consisted of responses from 1,106 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 16.
The study, titled “Helping Others? The Effects of Childhood Poverty and Family Instability on Prosocial Behavior,” focused on positive behaviors of disadvantaged children. A study with this sort of positive focus is not commonly done, Lichter said.
In the past, research on adolescence has focused on negatives: Lack of involvement with school, problems with family and friends, substance abuse and others, said Michael Shanahan, an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and another researcher involved in the study.
“As that research accumulates, it creates the impression that young people are inherently problematic,” Shanahan said. “Perhaps this is the wrong generalization to make, though, and indeed a dangerous one that creates tension among adolescents and older age groups. Behavioral scientists need to focus on both negatives and positives to get a more balanced perspective.”
The study presented two basic views on whether disadvantaged adolescents would volunteer, Lichter said. The first view was that children who grew up in disadvantaged situations would be more empathetic and more likely to give back to others in similar situations.
The second view was that those same children would be unwilling to give back because they feel alienated, Lichter said. The study had more support for the second hypothesis than the first, he said.
“The study behooves all of us to instill prosocial attitudes in our children so they will become full-fledged members of society,” Lichter said. “Not all of these children are growing up to be civic-minded people involved in the community.”
The study, however, only focused on volunteering through formal organizations, including schools and religious institutions, Lichter said. There are all sorts of helping behaviors, but the data analyzed focused on formal volunteering and not informal volunteering such as monetary donations or lending a neighborly hand.
The study’s results suggest local religious organizations provide important points of access for volunteering, Shanahan said. Even though most youth have this opportunity, those growing up in challenging situations tend to have lower church attendance and are less likely to participate in church community-service events.
Children coming from disadvantaged backgrounds may not be able to financially afford participation in volunteer activities, said Jim Wilson, pastor at Lord of Life Lutheran Church near Worthington. If adolescents are working, they also may not be able to afford to take time off from work. They have to take care of their own needs before they take care of others’ needs, he said.
This past summer, 37 youth from Wilson’s church traveled to Akron for several days to work in a community shelter. Out of the 37, six were sponsored anonymously by the church. The hardest part is getting the money to the children because of the social stigma, especially with parents who do not want handouts, Wilson said.
“Through our donations, we help kids learn to be compassionate to others, so they themselves learn to do that later,” Wilson said. “The sad thing is that we only reach the kids we know and those brought in through the congregation.”
The study was done for the scientific community, but when viewed with other studies, will lead policy makers and people working with children to appreciate the importance of children’s social settings, Shanahan said. The implications of social settings influence the well-being of youth and their participation in society, he said.
“The long-term concern is whether disadvantaged children grow up to be productive citizens involved in their community,” Lichter said.
Continued studies are now tracking the same disadvantaged adolescents into adulthood to see how their volunteer participation changes. Although these studies are only in the beginning stages, Lichter has noted that an adolescent’s actions do carry over into adulthood.
