Social Capital and Service Learning

Social Capital and Service LearningAuthor(s): David E. CampbellSource: PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Sep., 2000), pp. 641-645Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/420872 .

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Social Capital and Service Learning David E. Campbell, Harvard University

Trends in the political engagement of America's high school students

present a paradox. At the same time that an unprecedented number of opportunities exist for American adolescents to get involved in activities with a political flavor like student governments, model United Nations, model Congress, Young Republicans and Young Democrats, and debate clubs, both interest and participation in political activities among high school students is low and declining. This is not unlike what has been observed among adults in the general population. A proliferation of advocacy groups has not resulted in more Americans get- ting involved in politics. Nor has a never-ending supply of political news on TV and radio, in print, and on- line led to an increase in the nation's attention to political matters.

It would be too presumptuous for me to claim that there is a direct causal connection between an increasing supply of opportunities for extracurricular political activities among young people and their declining rates of civic engagement. A more modest claim does seem plau- sible, however: politics has increasingly become a niche activity, pur- sued by that relatively small slice of the population who are, as Robert Dahl (1961) famously put it, "homo politicus," i.e., "political junkies." Television channels provide a telling analogy. Whereas once, events like national political conventions and presidential press conferences would preempt all network programming, they are increasingly shunted off to all-news cable channels and C-SPAN. Ironically, a greater supply of political news has meant that it is easier for people who are not predisposed to seek out politically-ori-

ented programming to avoid it. In high school, the more civic activity is diverted to specialized clubs that compete with sports, drama, music, and cheerleading for students' time and energy, the easier it is for students who are not predisposed to seek out politically-oriented activities to avoid experiencing them (and deciding, perhaps, that they like it).

If I am correct, reversing the tide of declining civic engagement among America's youth will require more than simply increasing the supply of politically-oriented clubs and extracurricular activities. Instead, a means must be found to encourage all students to be civically engaged. And one way to do that is to foster the development of social capital among high school students and- perhaps more importantly--between high school students and adults in their communities. Encouraging community service through service learning programs is one such means. Participating in community service can increase social capital, which in turn can increase civic engagement. I use the term "civic engagement" to mean participation in voluntary associations of all sorts, not just political organizations. As I will explain, even participation in nonpolitical activity can have significant consequences for political participation.

Like so many terms in political science, "social capital" has come to mean myriad things. I use it in the sense of sociologist James Coleman (1988, 1990; Coleman and Kigore 1987) and political scientist Robert Putnam (1993). As Putnam ex- plained, "social capital refers to fea- tures of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and co- operation for mutual benefit" (1995, 67). Interestingly, while Putnam's work on Italy and the United States has attracted a lot of attention from political scientists, the original work by Coleman has been largely ig- nored. Coleman's work, however, is

directly relevant to my discussion, as he developed the concept of social capital in the course of studying the academic performance of high school students. He theorized that schools embedded in what he called functional communities- communi- ties in which people interact regular- ly-produce students rich in social capital, which fosters superior academic performance. For Coleman, social capital in a school community enforces norms like recognizing the value of academic achievement and generalized reciprocity. It is this norm of reciprocity-"mutual expec- tations that a benefit granted now should be repaid in the future" (Put- nam 1993, 172)-that most political scientists mean when they refer to social capital, as it allows communities to overcome the free-rider prob- lem inherent to organizing collective action, including (but not limited to) political activity. Social capital theory thus leads me to propose that enhancing young people's capacity for engaging in civic activity can best be accomplished by promoting ad- herence to the norm of generalized reciprocity. Encouraging community service is one way to do this.

In suggesting that community service can help reengage America's youth with America's political life, I hope to debunk the claim that volunteerism bodes ill for political activity. Increasingly, reports on the civic activity of young people posit that volunteerism among the mem- bers of Generation X is somehow the result of young people abandon- ing what political scientists have nor- mally considered civic organizations. For example, a report by the Na- tional Association of Secretaries of State, based on the results of a survey of 15-24 year-olds, concludes that

[Y]oung people are volunteering in much greater numbers, but this activity is distinctly apolitical. In- stead, youth participation often takes the form of social service, with the goal of directly helping

David Campbell is a Ph.D. candidate in Harvard's University's government depart- ment and a research fellow with Harvard's Program on Educational Policy and Gover- nance. He can be reached at dcampbel@ latte. harvard. edu.

PSOnline www.apsanet.org 641



Figure 1 Percentage of High School Seniors Participating in Community Service and Political Activity

35

30

25

20- " -*-- Participation in Community Service

S A - - - - Participation (Actual or Intended) in Political 15 A ' Activity

SA- A: %ALA- "A'-A--, 10

5

0

<%1 C; 'C%$lc? 109 Is NqNqNqNqNq Source: Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of the Lifestyles and Values of Youth, 1976-96. See note 2 in text for description of questions.

other people. In the minds of these young volunteers, there is no political end or motivational goal to their volunteer activities. This more personal, one-to-one volunteerism most often takes place in community institutions like soup kitchens, hospitals, and schools. (1999, 22)

Contrary to the implied conclusion drawn by the authors of this report and others like it,1 the osten- sibly apolitical volunteer activity by America's youth can increase political participation. Volunteer activity builds social capital, and smooths the way for collaborative efforts, including efforts directed at effecting political change.

Admittedly, fear of a substitution effect, where nonpolitical volunteerism crowds out political activity, would seem to be justified if one knew only that adolescent political activity has declined over the last two decades while participation in community service has increased.

However, even a cursory glance at the trends in volunteering and political activity among America's high school students reveals that there is no reason to be- lieve that the up- swing in volunteerism has led to the decline in political activity. Figure 1 displays the percentage of high school seniors who reported that they had participated in or intended to participate in a political campaign between 1976 and 1996, as reported in the annual Monitoring the Future surveys.2 The downward slope will be familiar to anyone who has exam- ined trends in political activity among adults or youth in the last two or three decades. Figure 1 also displays, however, that the percent-

Volunteer activity builds social capital, and smooths the way for collaborative efforts, including efforts directed at effecting political change.

age of students participating in community service actually increased over the same period, no doubt due to the increasing emphasis on com-

munity service in high school. But the increase in volunteerism began in the early 1990s, while the decline in political activity can be observed from 1976 on. Further, year-by- year logistic regres- sions gauging the relationship between frequency of community service and the same measure of political activity

used in Figure 1 demonstrate that (a) there is a consistently positive, not negative, relationship between community service and political activity, and (b) that the relationship has not diminished in magnitude over two decades.

642 PS September 2000



Figure 2 Logit Coefficients for the Relationship Between the Frequency of Community Service and Political Activity (Including 95% confidence intervals)

0.6

0.5

0.4- 0.3 -

eo / " T

0.2-

0.1

0

Source: Monitoring the Future: A Contining Study fo the Lifestyles and Values of Youth, 1976-96. Control variables: age, sex, race, parents' education, church attendance, religiosity, region of residence, grade, intention of attending college, and hours spent working at a job. See note 2 for a description of questions. Full resutls are available upon request.

These models control for a host of possibly confounding variables: age, sex, race, parents' education, church attendance, religiosity, region of residence, grades, intention of attending college, and hours spent working at a job. Figure 2 displays a simple line chart of the coefficients for community service from 1976 to 1996, along with the 95% confidence interval for each coefficient. The coefficient for frequency of community service is always statistically significant and always positive. And, while there are slight fluctuations in the size of the coefficient from year to year, the width of the confidence intervals demonstrates that those differences are not statistically significant. In other words, the relationship has remained essentially the same over two decades.

The findings from the Monitoring the Future surveys are bolstered by data collected by Gallup in their Giving and Volunteering surveys. In 1994 and 1996, survey respondents were asked extensive questions about their volunteerism, including whether they performed volunteer work while young.3 While 31% of

Americans who report that they did not perform volunteer work while young engage in voluntary activity as adults, 64% of respondents who did volunteer in their youth also volun- teered as adults. And, consistent with social capital theory, a similarly dramatic increase is observed for voluntary activity on behalf of a political organization or campaign. Just under 2% of those who did not volunteer while young did as adults, while 6.3% of those who did perform youthful volunteer activity con- tinued doing so later in life. These results hold up in multivariate analysis, as reported in Table 1. There, results are reported for the same measures when controlling for education, income, age, marital status, gender, race, suburban residence, homeownership, full time employment, and church attendance. Dis- played is the probability of a respondent engaging in either voluntary activity generally or on behalf of a political organization, generated from logistic regression coefficients.4 Note that the differences are reported with their 95% confidence intervals in parentheses. All differ-

ences are statistically significant at the .001 level.

I do not present these data as a rigorous test of the effects service learning programs in secondary schools can have on civic engagement, as they only deal with community service in general and do not account for service activity required or sponsored by a student's school. I only wish to provide prima facie evi- dence that community service among young people facilitates civic engagement generally and political activity specifically, both while indi- viduals are young and when they become adults. Admittedly, even if one accepts this general proposition, questions remain about how a community service program should be implemented. Undoubtedly, careful analysis of specific service learning programs of the type provided in this symposium will yield guidelines for developing service learning programs that contribute to building social capital. A close reading should also help decisionmakers de- termine whether some types of activity are more effective than others, whether making service mandatory




TABLE 1 Volunteering While Young and Volunteering as an Adult

With Demographic Controlsa Did Not

Volunteer While Did Volunteer Did Not Volunteer Did Volunteer Young While Young While Young While Young

% doing any 31.0 64 34.1 60.7 voluntary activity (29.0/32.9) (61.7/65.9) (30.4/38.3) (56.5/65.2)

% doing political 1.9 6.3 2.3 6.5 volunteer work (1.3/2.5) (5.2/7.3) (1.4/3.6) (4.4/9.3)

N=4,195 N=3,661

Source: Giving and Volunteering Surveys 1994, 1996. a For the logistic regression models, the controls are education, income, age, marital status, gender, race, suburban residence, homeownership, full-time employment, and church attendance. Log likelihood of the model =-546.779; pseudo R2 = .1040; probability of chi2 = .104. Full results are available upon request.

negates its effects, and how long a service experience should last. Even if the answers are not forthcoming, it at least seems certain that educators wishing to implement service learning as an investment in social capital will enjoy some success.

Some insight into how this happens can be gained from returning to Coleman's original research into the links between academic performance and social capital. Coleman sought to explain the success of Catholic schools in producing good students, and did so by pointing to the social capital within their walls, in the homes of their students, and in the communities of which they are an extension. These same schools can also provide an example for effective service learning, as schools charac- terized by healthy stocks of social capital also have high rates of voluntary service among their students. In Catholic Schools and the Common Good, Anthony S. Bryk, Valerie E. Lee, and Peter B Holland wrote of the ethos of community service that pervades contemporary Catholic schools. For example, in describing

The thicker the networks of social connectedness among students and between students and adults within their community, the more opportunities a norm of generalized reciprocity will have to develop.

one typical school, they noted that an optional course in community service attracts 80% of students (1993, 8), a figure consistent with nationally-representative survey

data. According to the 1996 National Household Educa- tion Survey, 75% of ninth through twelfth grade students in Catholic schools engaged in voluntary service (67% when exclud- ing students who attended schools that require community service). This compares to 48% of students in assigned public schools, the type of school an over- whelming majority of American stu-

dents attend.5 In suggesting that educators look

to Catholic schools as exemplars of effective service learning, I do not mean to imply that a religious emphasis in the school is necessary (or sufficient) to facilitate volunteerism among students. Rather, the key factor is that the school is embedded within a functional community, which need not be defined by reli- gion (or income level, or race, or ethnicity, or any demographic char- acteristic). Remember that func-

tional communities simply include people who know and interact with one another. The thicker the networks of social connectedness among students and between students and adults within their community, the more opportunities a norm of generalized reciprocity will have to develop. Service learning, then, should be directed toward thickening those bonds of connectedness. It would seem to me that this is best accomplished by institut- ing programs that maximize interac- tion between students and adults, and that constitute collaborative ef- fort, providing, as Putnam put it, a "template" for future collective action. One promising example can be found in Boston's City on a Hill School, a charter public school that has as its mission seeking to "culti- vate an understanding of citizenship and the democratic process" (Som- merfeld 1996). The school places all of its students in internships around the Boston area during the two- week intersession between fall and spring semesters. While some of the internships involve politics per se (like working in a senator's office), many do not (like volunteering for the Boston Aquarium). All, however, involve participation in community-based activities.

In conclusion, my thoughts here are delivered in an optimistic spirit. While levels of social capital within a community-whether high or low-can be enduring, they need not be permanent. Just as physical

644 PS September 2000



and human capital can be increased by constructive policies, so can social capital. Few dispute that the quality of the nation's long-term economic

health will be determined in large part by the quality of its schools. Similarly, more Americans should recognize that America's civic health

can also be ensured by an investment in the social capital of her schools. Service learning holds promise as just such an investment.

Notes

1. See, for example, a poll commissioned by the Panetta Institute and released in January 2000. The title says it all: "Institute Poll Shows College Students Turned Off by Poli- tics, Turned On by Other Public Service." For the full report, see www.panettainstitute.org/ newsl.html.

2. Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of the Lifestyles and Values of Youth is an annual survey administered to students at roughly 125 high schools across the United States. Approximately 2,500 to 3,600 students per year answered these questions. Figure 1 displays the percentage of students who reported that they "participate in community affairs or volunteer work" "once or twice a month, at least once a week, or almost every- day," and those who reported that they "have done or plan to do... work in a political campaign." See http://monitoringthefuture. org/ for more details.

3. While a longitudinal study would provide superior data, Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) have demonstrated that retrospective reports of civic activity while young provide credible results when used in models of adult

civic volunteerism. These data are taken from the Giving and Volunteering Surveys (Inde- pendent Sector) for 1994 and 1996. Respon- dents were asked whether they had performed any of the following forms of volunteer work within the last year: health; education; religious; human services; environ- ment; public/society benefit; recreation (adults); arts, culture, and humanities; work- related organizations; political organizations/ campaigns; youth development; private and community foundations; international/foreign; informal; and other. The retrospective ques- tion simply asked whether respondents "did some kind of volunteer work .., .when you were young."

4. If one thinks of the process of setting values to generate a probability as creating a "hypothetical respondent," then this respondent is a white male who lives in a suburban community and owns his home and is em- ployed full time. He has a mean education, age, income, and frequency of church attendance. These results, including the estimates of uncertainty, were generated using CLAR-

IFY: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results (Tomz, Wittenberg, and King 1999).

5. This difference holds up with the intro- duction of numerous control variables: age, sex, English spoken in the home, living in the South, race, Hispanic ethnicity, academic performance, expectation of attending college, political efficacy, interest in news, hours spent working at a job, parents' education, family income, having two parents in the home, frequency of parents' church attendance, parental volunteer service in the community at large, parental volunteer service in the school, parents' political participation, racial compo- sition of the school, size of the school, whether the school arranges community service, whether students feel that their opinions influence school policies, whether the student has taken a class with civics content, and whether the school has a student government. Data from the 1996 National Household Edu- cation Survey were analyzed using replicate weights. For more details, see Campbell (2000).

References

Bryk, Anthony S., Valerie Lee, and Peter B. Holland. 1993. Catholic Schools and the Common Good. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Campbell, David E. 2000. "Making Demo- cratic Education Work: Schools, Social Capital, and Civic Education." Presented at the Conference on Vouchers, Charter Schools, and Public Education, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Coleman, James S. 1988. "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital." Ameri- can Journal of Sociology 94 (Supplement): S95-S120.

-. 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

-, and Thomas Kilgore. 1987. Public and Private High Schools: The Impact of Com- munities. New York: Basic Books.

Dahl, Robert. 1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Ha- ven: Yale University Press.

National Association of Secretaries of State. 1999. New Millenium Project-Part I: American Youth Attitudes on Politics, Citi- zenship, Government, and Voting <www.nass.org/nass99/youth.html>. Washington, DC: NASS. Accessed: June 20, 2000.

Panetta Institute. 2000. "Institute Poll Shows College Students Turned Off by Politics, Turned On by Other Public Service" <www.panettainstitute.org/newsl/html>. Accessed: June 20, 2000.

Putnam, Robert D., with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Mod- em Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

-. 1995. "Bowling Alone: America's Declin- ing Social Capital." Journal of Democracy 6(January): 65-78.

Sommerfeld, Meg. 1996. "Bringing the Fun- damentals of Civics to Life at City on a Hill" <www.edweek.org/ew/1996/ 27cityy.h15>. Education Week, March 27. Accessed: June 20, 2000.

Tomz, Micheal, Jason Wittenberg, and Gary King. 1999. CLARIFY: Software for In- terpreting and Presenting Statistical Re- sults <www.gking.harvard.edu>. Ver. 1.2.1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer- sity.

Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.




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Social Capital and Service Learning