Networked democracy: School-based volunteerism and youth civic engagement

• Published in: Democratic Paths and Trends Vol. 18; pp. 129 - 149
• Main Author: Morimoto, Shauna A
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Emerald Group Publishing Limited 29.07.2010
• ISBN: 9780857240910; 0857240919
• ISSN: 0895-9935
• DOI: 10.1108/S0895-9935(2010)0000018010

This chapter aims to provide insight into conceptualizing and understanding the experience of civic engagement through voluntary service for high school students in the United States today. Unlike prior studies of youth civic life that are predominately quantitative and rely on correlates of youth civic engagement, this qualitative research explores the meanings and rationale youth attribute to being members of their communities. Youth service work emerges in two general forms. Some young people have an altruistic orientation: they are dedicated to help the less fortunate in their communities, but at the same time, they lack strong ideological investment. Other students have an activist orientation: they are committed to activist politics, but cannot connect their political concerns to school-based service. These two orientations to service develop in the context of school programs that encourage – or require – episodic single acts of volunteerism as a form of civic education. Diffuse associational forms and loose, individually based networks thus shape the context and content of youth volunteerism. These associational forms imply the practice of “networked democracy” by young Americans. Although networked associational ties offer young people weaker forms of collective organization, they also allow students to connect to and experiment with many different ideas, issues, and forms of expression.