BEING VOLUNTEERED - THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL-PARTICIPATION AND PRO-SOCIALATTITUDES ON VOLUNTEERING

While disagreeing over the reasons why the performance of civic obliga tions seems to be declining, conservatives and liberals agree that peo ple need to be reminded of their duties as citizens for this decline t o be halted But do these exhortations work? This paper tests two theor ies about how people become volunteers. The ''normativist'' perspectiv e assumes that volunteer behavior flows from socialization into pro-so cial attitudes; the ''social practice'' perspective stresses the forma tive role of practical experiences and social participation. Using a p anel study of high school seniors who were reinterviewed in their mid- 20s and again in their early 30s, we show that volunteer work undertak en in high school has long-term benefits as does social participation more generally but that socialization into pro-social attitudes has an even stronger influence on volunteering in middle age. The implicatio ns of our study are that mandatory community service programs can boos t later volunteer efforts bur that socialization into appropriate citi zenship attitudes is of equal, if nor greater importance.