1. Ontario`s Mandated High School Community Service Program: Assessing Civic Engagement After Four Years S. D. Brown, S.M. Pancer, P. Padanyi, M. Baetz, J. Goyder, M. Drysdale & A. Henderson
Results
Comparing HS Volunteering Experiences of Mandated
and Non-Mandated Students
Current Volunteering: Comparing the Mandated Service Group with other Service groups and a ``No Service`` group
Introduction
In 1999, the Ontario government introduced a requirement that high school students complete 40 hours of community service before graduating. Part of the government’s reason for doing so was to promote greater civic engagement among young adults. With the program now approaching its tenth year, it is appropriate to ask how successfully it is meeting its objectives.
In the present investigation, two main questions are addressed:
Does mandating the service in high school have any negative effects on attitudes and volunteering several years later?
Does the program promote greater civic engagement among its key target population: those who probably would not have been introduced to the voluntary sector without the requirement?
Those mandated to volunteer in high school did so at a greater rate than those who did not have a requirement (94% vs 77%). Hence the mandated program exposed a greater proportion of the high school cohort to the voluntary sector. The community service experiences were similar in comparing the two cohorts, but not identical. There were no differences in the average number of volunteer sectors sampled by the cohorts or in the likelihood of at least a year-long commitment at a placement. However, the average ``enjoyment`` index score in describing the placement was somewhat but statistically higher for the non-mandated cohort.
The main target population for mandated community service programs are students who would not otherwise be inclined to volunteer their time. To see the effects of the program on this target population, we divided the mandated group into those who had volunteered prior to their mandated community service (``mandated and volunteered`` group) and those for whom the mandated service was their first experience with the voluntary sector (``mandated only`` group). The bar graph compares subsequent civic involvements across the four groups. It suggests that for the three behavioural measures of involvement, the ``mandated only`` group more closely resembles the ``no service`` group than the other groups that volunteered in high school. Only for the attitudinal measure regarding volunteering does is the ``mandated only`` group more like the other two volunteering groups.
Participants
820 4th year university students at Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Guelph
71.4% female, 29.6% male
Mean age: 22.6 years
Range of ages: 21-26
Current Volunteering: Comparing Mandated, Non-mandated
and No service Groups from High School
Predicting Current Volunteering Levels
Regressing Current Volunteering on Social Background and
HS Community Service Characteristics and Service Groups
Variables
Unstandardized
B Coefficients
Std.
Error
Statistical
Significance
Constant
.23
.47 NS
Background Factors
Sex
.20
.21
Politics discussed in family
-.77
.31
.02
Religious attendance
2.20
.001
HS Activity level
.84
.25
Urban-Rural residence
Mother`s CS activity
1.48
.56
.01
Father`s CS Activity
1.31
.57
HS Com Service Characteristics
Breadth of HS volunteering
.34
.07
Duration of HS volunteering
-.11
.13
Enjoyment of HS volunteering
1.97
.52
Intro to CS by HS Mandated Requirement
-.71
Mandated but Vol. In HS Before
-.56
.42
Not Mandated & Volunteered in HS
-.60
.43 R2
.28
Method
Participants completed a 25-minute online survey dealing with their high school community service experience and with their recent community service activities. The survey also gathered information about the social and family background of the students. Since this 4th year class was the Ontario “double cohort”, about half (50.2%) of the students had completed community service in high school as a requirement for graduation while the other half (49.8%) had not. Since the two cohorts were comparable in most other respects, the non-mandated cohort can serve as a quasi-experimental control group for assessing the effects of mandating community service.
Do those who volunteered in high school exhibit higher levels of civic engagement four years after high school graduation than those who did no high school community service. The bar graph indicates that the ``no service`` group was significantly below both the mandated and non-mandated volunteers for all four of the civic engagement measures. The mandated group was not significantly different from the non-mandated group on these measures.
Predicting Current Volunteering Levels
Regressing Current Volunteering on Social Background and
HS Community Service Characteristics
A multiple regression simultaneously controls for the effects of background characteristics as well as the various community service characteristics. The regression suggests that volunteering by itself – whether because it was mandated or freely chosen – does not significantly improve our ability to predict subsequent community service activity relative to those who did not volunteer in high school. Among high school community service characteristics, only ``breadth`` of service and ``enjoyment`` of service matter.
Variables
Unstandardized
B Coefficients
Std.
Error
Statistical
Significance
Constant
-.13
.40 NS
Background Factors
Sex
.18
.21
Politics discussed in family
-.76
.32
.02
Religious attendance
2.18
.31
.001
HS Activity level
.83
.25
Urban-Rural residence
Mother`s CS activity
1.50
.56
.01
Father`s CS Activity
1.34
HS Com Service Characteristics
Breadth of HS volunteering
.07
Duration of HS volunteering
-.22
.15
.04
Enjoyment of HS volunteering
2.23
.49
Mandated HS volunteering or not
-.08 R2
.28
Independent Measures
Was the student compelled to complete a community service requirement in high school?
If so, was this his/her first introduction to volunteering?
Characteristics of high school community service experience
Number of volunteer sectors worked (6 sectors offered)
Duration of longest placement in any sector
Enjoyment of experience (an 8-item scale) at longest placement
Social Background factors: gender, religious attendance, high school activity level, urban-rural residence, mother’s and father’s community service activity levels
Conclusions
Mandated service experiences in high school are similar to voluntary service experiences in high school.
It appears that mandating community service does not ``poison the well`` for future volunteering. Mandated and Non-mandated groups exhibit similar levels of civic engagement and both exhibit somewhat greater levels of civic involvement than those who did no community service in high school.
Students who volunteered more reluctantly in high school – that is, those forced into it by the mandated requirement – were not more likely to volunteer subsequently than those who did no high school service at all. That is, the argument that forcing students into the voluntary sector will pay dividends down the road is not supported by these data.
More important than the initial stimulus for volunteering are how much the student enjoyed the experience and how broadly he or she sampled the voluntary sector. Hence, this would seem to argue for well-structured programs that assist high school students to find suitable and satisfying placements.
Surprisingly, duration of high school commitment did not emerge as a significant predictor of subsequent involvement.
Dependent Measures
Index of community service activity in last 12 months (6 volunteer sectors)
Level of university charitable activity in last 12 months
Current attitude toward volunteering (3-item scale)
Because differences in the social backgrounds of the cohorts may explain the differences , a multiple regression was conducted with controls for those background factors. The analysis indicates that breadth of high school service (number of sectors in which the student volunteered) and the degree of ``enjoyment`` it engendered are significant predictors of subsequent volunteering . However, the fact that service was mandated is not a significant predictor.
Limitations
The test population here is a 4th year university cohort. Participants are just completing a period at university in which significant socialization effects can be expected. Hence, after controls, the absence of differences in subsequent civic engagement between those who volunteered in high school and those who did not may be the result of these intervening socialization processes.