Volunteerism: Valuable but not a Remedy

I wholeheartedly agree with amd5m in her blog entitled, "Civic Engagement: Is UVA fooling us? Are we Fooling Ourselves?" that we need to look critically at the organizations we and members of our community are involved in and determine what exactly our purpose and role is in these voluntary associations. I do believe that some voluntary associations can create civic skills, enhance political behavior, and improve democracy and society. What I got out of the readings for this week is that we cannot just assume that volunteering is a fulfillment of our civic duty.

Before reading the Theiss-Morse and Hibbing article I would have agreed that belonging to a voluntary association would most likely increase members political participation because it gives them a forum in which to practice civic skills like letter writing and public speaking. However, Theiss-Morse and Hibbing caution that most people who are involved in voluntary associations already tend to be involved in politics. One of the other authors mentioned that people who volunteer are generally from a higher socio-economic class. Therefore those people who have time to volunteer are probably the people who have more opportunities to practice civic skills in their workplace (they don't work in customer service or preform manual labor). Therefore, voluntary associations are not a place for them to gain civic skills, but rather to utilize the knowledge they already have. It has also been shown that people who are actively engaged in voluntary associations are already more actively engaged in politics.

Although the majority of the time volunteers already possess civic skills, I can imagine some cases where voluntary associations may be the only way certain citizens can gain civic skills (someone who has a blue collared job but decides to become involved in the PTA). Additionally, I believe that even though voluntary associations focus on small local issues, they can be a way to get these issues noticed by the public. I would be more likely to consider a candidates views on education if I knew that my neighbor tutored underprivileged children once a week. These considerations come back to my first point that we need to take a critical look at the voluntary associations people are involved in and why they are involved. I agree with the authors that we cannot prescribe participation in civic associations as a remedy for lessened political participation. However, it is important to remember that voluntary associations are important and can function to increase civic skills and improve democracy if used correctly.