Digital Commons Network^™

Volunteerism In The University Culture, Stephanie V. Blocker

Anthropology Theses

This project examines how undergraduate and graduate students at a university in the Southern United States utilize and conceptualize volunteering at the beginning of the second decade of the 21^st century, a time when volunteerism is on the rise despite a severe economic crisis. I was interested in taking an anthropological approach to explore the reasons that people volunteered as well as how their decisions about volunteering might be impacted by different aspects of their identity, including their ethnicity, gender identity, student status, and affiliation with student groups. Based on in-depth interviews and surveys conducted with five undergraduate and …