Anne Birgitta Pessi

A Cross-Cultural Examination of Student Volunteering: Is It All About Résumé Building?

This research adopts the utilitarian view of volunteering as a starting point: we posit that for an undergraduate student population volunteering is motivated by career enhancing and job prospects. We hypothesize that in those countries where volunteering signals positive characteristics of students and helps advance their careers, their volunteer participation will be higher. Furthermore, regardless of the signaling value of volunteering, those students who volunteer for utilitarian reasons will be more likely to volunteer but will exhibit less time-intensive volunteering. Using survey data from 12 countries (n = 9,482), we examine our hypotheses related to motivations to volunteer, volunteer participation, and country differences. Findings suggest that students motivated to volunteer for building their résumés do not volunteer more than students with other motives. However, in countries with a positive signaling value of volunteering, volunteering rates are significantly higher. As expected, students motivated by résumé building motivations have a lower intensity of volunteering.

Social and cultural origins of motivations to volunteer a comparison of university students in six countries

Although participation in volunteering and motivations to volunteer (MTV) have received substantial attention on the national level, particularly in the US, few studies have compared and explained these issues across cultural and political contexts. This study compares how two theoretical perspectives, social origins theory and signalling theory, explain variations in MTV across different countries. The study analyses responses from a sample of 5794 students from six countries representing distinct institutional contexts. The findings provide strong support for signalling theory but less so for social origins theory. The article concludes that volunteering is a personal decision and thus is influenced more at the individual level but is also impacted to some degree by macro-level societal forces.

Service-Learning: Findings From a 14-Nation Study

Service-learning literature has been dominated by studies from North America with little cross-national comparative work. This article reports on a survey of university students conducted across 14 different countries. The study examines the relationships between service-learning programs (both compulsory and optional) at high school and university, along with current volunteering, study subject, and sociodemographic variables. The survey found variation in service-learning across the different countries along with relationships between service-learning participation and gender, family income, and study subject. By contrast to previous research, however, both mandatory and optional service-learning at high school and university led to higher participation in general volunteering.

Privatized religiosity revisited: Building an authenticity model of individual–church relations

A majority of scholars agree that late-modern religiosity is characterized by ‘privatization’, particularly in Western Europe. However, even a general picture reveals that the privatization thesis is both verified and contradicted by aspects of the European religious scene. Particularly, since religion de facto is a social phenomenon, what is the meaning of a community to an individual with privatized religiosity? This is the focus of the author. The data include 17 in-depth interviews, which were analyzed with grounded theory methodology. The analysis generates a novel authenticity model of individual−church relations which consists of the interplay between three elements: experiences (especially rites, traditions, and emotions), values (both expectations of the church and personal values in relation to the church), and truth (frameworks for reflection, supply of religious activities, clear standpoints, and space for individuality) – as well as authenticity, which is present in all three.

What gives? Cross-national differences in students’ giving behavior

Abstract This study is targeted to understanding the giving of time and money among a specific cohort – university students across 13 countries. It explores predictors of different combinations of giving behaviors: only volunteering, only donating, neither, as compared to doing both. Among the predictors of these four types of giving behavior, we also account for cross-national differences across models of civil society. The findings show that students predominantly prefer to give money than to volunteer time. In addition, differences in civil society regimes provide insights into which type of giving behavior might dominate. As expected, in the Statist and Traditional models of civil society, students consistently were more likely to be disengaged in giving behaviors (neither volunteering nor giving money) in comparison to students in the Liberal model who were more likely to report doing ‘both’ giving behaviors. An important implication of our findings is that while individual characteristics and values influence giving of time and money, these factors are played out in the context of civil society regimes, whose effects cannot be ignored. Our analysis has made a start in a new area of inquiry attempting to explain different giving behaviors using micro and macro level factors and raises several implications for future research.

Significant Work Is About Self-Realization and Broader Purpose: Defining the Key Dimensions of Meaningful Work

Research on meaningful work has proliferated in recent years, with an increasing understanding of the centrality of meaningfulness for work-related motivation, commitment, and well-being. However, ambiguity around the main construct, “meaningful work,” has hindered this progress as various researchers have used partly overlapping, partly differing conceptualizations. To bring clarity to this issue, we examine a broad range of various definitions of meaningful work and come to argue that meaningfulness in the broadest sense is about work significance as an overall evaluation of work as regards whether it is intrinsically valuable and worth doing. Furthermore, we argue that there are two key sub-dimensions to this work significance: Broader purpose as work serving some greater good or prosocial goals (the intrinsic value of work beyond the person in question). And self-realization as a sense of autonomy, authenticity and self-expression at work (the intrinsic value of work for the person in question). Previous definitions of meaningful work feature typically one or two of these elements—significance, broader purpose, self-realization –, but in the future it would be beneficial to clearly acknowledge all three elements in both definitions and operationalizations of meaningful work.

Young Adults’ Conceptions of the Sacred in Finland Today

This study examined young adults’ perspectives on the concept of the sacred. Altogether, 334 young Finnish adults aged 19–35 were studied through a self-report questionnaire. The participants’ personal conceptions, reflections and experiences of the sacred were assessed with open-ended questions. Answers were classified in a data-determined content analysis using a thematic analytical approach. In addition, the study examined how these understandings of the sacred were related to subjective religiosity and how the definitions vary across gender. The findings suggest that the conceptions of the sacred mainly concentrate on individuality and personal issues, including personal opinion, rest and peace, but also close social relationships and the church as an institution. By differentiating the conceptions of the sacred, this study reflects cultural interpretations of what the sacred means and integrates the concept in the theory of young adulthood as a life course phase and in the sociology of youth.

The Influence of Religion on Philanthropy across Nations

Religion has been a part of human existence and communities since their earliest forms, evolving and transforming in different contexts and during different times. Its role has been central in the history of human compassion, benevolence and charity. These traits permeate all world religions and their texts, although the emphases in different religions vary. For instance, Judaism, Islam and various Oriental religions share a strong obligation to give and to help (Neusner & Chilton, 2005). The tradition of charity in the Middle East, the emphasis on hospitality in ancient Greek culture and the Jewish and Christian doctrines of loving one’s neighbor (Makinen, 2002, p. 10) all echo the universal principle of compassion — to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.

Spiritual Care in the Last Phase of Life: A Comparison between the Church of Sweden and the Church of Finland

This article deals with the Church of Sweden and the Church of Finland and their spiritual support for parishioners during their end-of-life phase. Support for the dying seemed uncommon in both countries, while most parishes offered support for the bereaved. The Finnish respondents expressed more confidence in their spiritual role than did the Swedes. This may have to do with the role of the churches in their respective countries and the varying geographies of death.

Social cohesion: from research to practice.

The chapter explores the theory and practice of social cohesion in relation to the policy recommendations that were made based on the findings of the WaVE project. It further discusses how the concept of social cohesion is used in politics and social science, and in the discursive contexts in which it appears. Finally, it uses the concept as an analytical tool on the discussion of the policy recommendations that came out of the WaVE project. The analysis is further developed in the context of the circle of cohesion in European localities.