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Inequality in Volunteering: Building a New Research Front

31/05/2022

Volunteering research focuses predominantly on predicting participation in volunteering, proceeding from the quasi-hegemonic foundation of resource theory and dominant-status theory. Empirical research in this tradition has provided extremely robust evidence that dominant groups in society are more likely to volunteer. At the same time, it has reinforced the status quo in the production of knowledge on volunteering, thereby neglecting the clear problematic of “inequality in volunteering.”

Compared to the guiding question of “participation,” the concept of “inequality” can generate a more variegated, critical, and change-oriented research agenda. With their special issue, Lesely Hustinx, Ane Grubb, Paul Rameder and Itamar Shachar aim to build a “new research front” in the field of volunteering. In this introduction, they advance a novel research agenda structured around a multidimensional understanding of inequality, concomitantly delineating four central research programs focusing on (a) resources, (b) interactions, (c) governmentalities, and (d) epistemologies.

Under the following link you find an overview of the articles of the special issue on "Inequality in Volunteering", including the freely available article “Who is in Charge” by Michael Meyer and Paul Rameder, who investigate the unequal access to senior/managerial positions in the fields of volunteer work in Austria: https://link.springer.com/journal/11266/volumes-and-issues/33-1

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