Summary of the Study
My dissertation endeavored to understand the reasons why a group of collegiate Black women volunteered. Millennials’ proclivity to engage in the community coupled with the institutionalization and professionalization of volunteer work by institutions of higher education creates a dynamic for students. If cultivated critically and inclusively, this dynamic could potentially highlight the public purpose of the university, which is outlined in the introduction. Once the intersection of higher education and community engagement is explored, Black women as a critical student population could be used as exemplars from a historical perspective to understand how the act of volunteering and having community ties hold tremendous personal value for individuals. Exploring this intersection could also consider how the communities being served are not seen as “others.” As Ashley pointed out the following:
I think when people are doing service, the mindset that they want to have is that I am the community, so I have to believe that I’m helping myself. When I motivate others and when I’m out there doing what I’m doing, I’m doing it because I would want it to be done [for] me. I want to believe it’s because you are the community.
Black women, historically dismissed in intellectual spaces, have rarely been the focus of study in research endeavors such regarding volunteerism despite confirmation of the necessity of their volunteerism as well as their enthusiasm and sense of responsibility for community uplift. Given this exclusion from the research, this dissertation demonstrates the importance of the topic.
Relevant literature regarding motivation and volunteerism concerning collegiate women, and Black women populations was shared. In the current United States’ climate of activism, political influence, and corporate social responsibility, higher education has placed greater emphasis on service and learning to solve social issues through
engagement with the community. Though volunteerism and community service are not often highly prioritized as community engagement initiatives for higher education administrators, they are relatively easy and accessibly ways to build a foundation for understanding the service attitudes and motivations of students. Dedication to a critical understanding of motivation and how the minority population makes meaning of service experiences should take precedence in conversations which strategize the service ethos of universities.
The lack of relevant literature meant the disparate information about motivation had to be researched separately from the volunteering experiences. The connection between motivation and action also included research regarding how one understands themselves. Radford-Hill (2000) contended the discussion of how an understanding of self is framed with sex/gender, values, power, and social change involved could be used to discuss differences and diversity.
The objective of my dissertation was to explore reasons why Black women volunteer and also to discover how they make meaning of their volunteer experiences, Ultimately, this objective was addressed by interviewing eleven women. Eleven undergraduate senior-classified women of diverse Black identities, majors, and
backgrounds agreed to participate in two 90-minute qualitative interviews. Although the interviews were rearranged to include one 90-minute interview and one 60-minute
interview, participants aimed to thoroughly answer the interview questions which ultimately addressed the study’s two research questions: what are reasons Black collegiate women choose to volunteer? and how do Black collegiate women make meaning of their volunteer experiences?
Interviews were conducted at FIU at either the Modesto Maidique or Biscayne Bay Campuses in the Center for Leadership and Service. A semi-structured interview schema consisting of 25 questions was used during the interviews and follow up questions were also utilized. Participants were asked to reflect on their volunteer
experiences and involvement in the community. Member checking was also implemented by participants being sent their interviews transcripts after each interview, which was used as a validity measure. Journaling after interviews to help the researcher reframe the following interviews or conversations was also crucial to the validity of the study.
The robust responses of women highlighted a distinctive perspective of community service work. All participants were volunteering before they enrolled in college. They received support through obligatory academic and family expectations and, as well received role modeling in their friendship groups. Church, a motivator that has been highlighted in literature as pivotal for Black women, was instrumental at the start of the volunteering journey for the participants. Distinctive to this dissertation is the
participants’ dissociative outlooks regarding how church and community service connect. Many of the participants did not attend church and were critical of the church practices of which they once participated.
The participants felt a drive to serve their communities. The drive was internal and akin to wanting to make a difference in the community rather than needing to
volunteer. The participants also volunteer to see a transformative impact in different communities. This impact in the community coincided with the impact the service had on themselves. There was a reluctance to discuss this impact and the benefits received because of their service work. There was also a reluctance to contribute their service work to social movements or frame it using political language, although several of the participants aspired to lead or create social movements.
The connections participants made doing service included connections to those they volunteered to help and those they volunteered alongside at the service project. The connections represented networking opportunities, friendships, as well as inspirational futures. As participants connected with those whom they volunteered to help through a hardship, many of them had to overcome barriers to continue volunteering. Participants reflected on their previous personal hardships to understand their privileges, which motivated them to volunteer to help others. This penchant to self-sacrifice was a constant for Black women throughout history, and similar dedication, values, and reflections continue to motivate these collegiate Black women to serve their communities.
The university had a disjointed role in the volunteering experiences of the participants. The marketing of the service events was plentiful at the university among their peers. However, reflection on the events did not occur in structured, faculty-led ways that were similar to the participants’ coursework. Among the eleven participants, two had a course which required community service be performed. The messages received from individuals at the university was the same the students received from role models earlier in their lives. However, the individuals at the university did not share the
same identities as the students. Participants have the available resources necessary which the university could assist in fulfilling for consistency in community work.
Volunteering was not without criticism for the participants, and many shared concerns for volunteering with disrespectful people and for organizations that lacked structure for the volunteer experience. Too much bureaucracy also threatened the volunteer experience, and the participants could not comfortably consider nonprofits whose practices did not align with their beliefs regarding volunteering.
Findings and Interpretations
The themes described in Chapter 4 richly described the study’s findings in eight themes. The eight themes are as follows: Volunteerism Began Before University
Enrollment; Service Started in Church but Volunteering in Church is No Longer Service; A Desire for Transformative Impact to Community and Selves; Politics, Social
Movements, and Volunteerism; Volunteering Helps Build Connections; Personal
Hardships and Overcoming Barriers; The University’s Disjointed Role in Volunteerism; Reasons for Criticism of Volunteerism. These themes helped to address the study’s two research questions which are answered in a further detailed description in this section.
Reasons Black Collegiate Women Choose to Volunteer
The first research question was: “What are reasons Black collegiate women choose to volunteer?” Responses to this research question were delineated and answered through the following themes: Volunteerism Began Before University Enrollment; Service Started in Church but Volunteering in Church is No Longer Service; A Desire for Transformative Impact to Community and Selves; Volunteering Helps Build
As noted by Framer and Piotrkowski (2009), many cultures have models of community service which include aspects of both individual and community. This is also a notion of Radford-Hill’s (2000) research which constructed a discussion on difference. The answer to the first research question was often a precursor to further discussion and assisted with answering the second research question. In short, the participants provided reasons for volunteering which encompassed all elements of the literature: altruism, egoism, functional, and identity-based. Although the interview protocol was based on the VFI, participants did not only share the functions that motivated their participation as volunteers, they also shared elements of leisure studies. These elements had foundations in cultural capital as well as identity-based motivation in the nuanced way connections were made.
Early Engagement in Community Service
Overwhelmingly, the Black collegiate women in this study completed service projects early in their lives. Most of them could not remember an age, but many of them reflected on beginning service in the church as early as elementary school, while all eleven participants completed service in high school. The early start to service yielded an additional three themes which were the reasons the participants signed up for a service project or remained active volunteers. Most often communicated as a reason for
volunteering earlier in their lives was a desire which was supported by the women’s role models at the time. Many of their role models signed them up for the projects or made sure they participated.
Personal satisfaction was the least salient reason the participants chose to
volunteering because of the other reasons they mentioned that were either deemed more selfless or more developmentally focused. Therefore, a double consciousness posited that identity-related demographics guided the volunteer activity of the participants. However, it was during the interviews when the researcher learned that personal satisfaction was experienced through either having fun or connecting with others (Musick & Wilson, 2008; Slevin, 2005). The participants regarded reasons other than altruism as the “wrong reasons” to volunteer, however, they incorporated several elements of altruism in the egoistic, functional, and identity-based motives they shared.
Church Was Motivational Earlier in Their Lives
The lack of “religious” participants was contrary to how many of them started performing service. The church was catalytic for Black women, historically, as well. However, Black women in this study did not invest in the church as other than a catalyst for volunteering elsewhere, and they often implied that service within the church is not service at all (Scott, 1990). Cognitive and social development made many of them critical of religion, the institution of the church, and the process by which they help the
community. Linking religiosity to church attendance, many of the participants stopped attending church, considered themselves spiritual with a foundation of religion. However, they believed the benefits reaped from volunteering were divine, and they considered volunteering as a sacred activity.
Declines in church membership demonstrated church began as a motivation to understand a servant attitude, but it progressively did not have the same significance. As Black women are often no longer vested in the activities of the church, their community alignment with the church as a focal point has lessened.
A Desire for Transformative Impact to Community and Selves
Prior to starting college, many participants mentioned that the desire to serve was the reason they volunteered. However, their continued service sprouted from their feelings of being personally responsible for serving communities in need. Social
responsibility has been mentioned throughout the literature regarding Black women. This component of the literature was alluded to in the participants’ accounts of personal responsibility, contrary to the double conscious notions expressed about Black women in the past. Transformative impact incorporates the effect on others with whom they served alongside or served to assist. There was no general applicable understanding about the scope or scale of the volunteering, but all participants assured that one must be willing to give of self to serve authentically. Oft-cited as selfish, the impact on their selves and their personal development was an overarching reason for many of them to volunteer during college.
The altruistic motivation for volunteering described a willingness to serve with no return (Sesardic, 1999). However, there were egocentric approaches to the altruism which the participants discussed. Impact on others as outlined by Monroe (1996) motivated the participants to continue serving. The reciprocal impact relationship between those they serve and themselves offered a greater reward for the participants than those they served, as Murningham et al. (1993) stated. The participants displayed the two empathic
arguments of altruism: (a) motivation to help relieve secondary distress and (b) empathetic, genuine desire to help.