Exploring the experience of service and volunteering around the world
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First Edition September 2003

Service in the 21st Century

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Preliminary Pages

i. Title page
ii. Imprint page
iii. Contents page
iv. Introduction
v. List of acronyms




PART 1:  Service and Volunteerism in the Global Context
Chapter 1
Civic Service Worldwide: A Preliminary Assessment
Amanda Moore McBride, Carlos Benitez, Michael Sherraden and Lissa Johnson (United States of America).
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This chapter is based on a research project launched in 2001 by the Center for Social Development through the Global Service Institute. The aim of this study was to identify a range of service programmes, and to document their purposes, activities, servers, and operations. An effort was made to specify the dimensions of the service role in terms of time commitment and eligibility. This is the first attempt to assess civic service worldwide; it should be viewed as a very preliminary assessment. Directions for future research are discussed.
Chapter 2
The Post–Cold War Environment for National Service Policy: Developments in Germany, Italy, Russia and China
Susan Stroud and Tatiana Omeltchenko (United States of America)
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Drawing on an international policy survey, this chapter outlines current thinking among governments and development agencies in Germany, Italy, Russia and China with regard to service and youth development. And overview of each country's experience is provided with particular attention to the developments and changes in service programmes including mandatory military service, civilian national service and voluntary service.
Chapter 3
National Youth Policy and National Youth Service: Toward Concerted Action
William D. Angel (Austria)
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This chapter makes the case for integrating youth policy and youth service into an action strategy. It argues that participation by youth in the formulation of youth policy could help ensure that youth policy is implemented. The chapter examines the different ways in which countries have tackled national youth policy and national youth service issues over the years since 1985, the UN International Youth Year. It concludes by showing how national youth service can be an essential part of the implementation of a national youth policy.
Chapter 4
Rethinking Community-Based Learning in the Context of Globalization
Ahmed Bawa (South Africa)
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Service emphasizes the centrality of learning – both for civil society organizations and for higher education students. Changing patterns of knowledge production provide a powerful opportunity to think creatively and systemically about service learning as a tool for development. This chapter explores how higher education institutions can reassert the public good, and foster their own transformation, by creating knowledge partnerships which enable communities and civil society to influence the globalization debates.
Chapter 5
Taking People Out of Boxes and Categories: Voluntary Service and Social Cohesion
Arthur Gillette (United States of America/France)
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This chapter turns the traditional paradigm of mainstreamers volunteering to help the excluded on its head: it examines the role that volunteering by marginalized individuals and communities has played in fostering social cohesion. The chapter draws on research undertaken in preparation for the International Year of the Volunteer 2001. It concludes that around the world, socially excluded individuals and groups are volunteering to help each other and that in the process, they are contributing to mainstream society.
Chapter 6
Senior Volunteers: Solutions Waiting to Happen
Elisabeth Hoodless (United Kingdom)
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This chapter explores the concept of senior service and examines the prospect of this field developing over time. The Global Service Institute's recent scan of service programmes around the world shows that "given the aging demographics of the world's population, it is curious that more programmes do not have senior servers". This chapter helps to fill the gap by drawing on recent research on service programmes involving seniors in Australia, the USA and the UK and takes a close look at the impact made by such programmes.

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PART 2:  Service and Development
Chapter 7
Theoretical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Civic Service
Leila Patel (South Africa)
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Civic service is increasingly being recognized as a significant social institution and an emerging social phenomenon in a context of global social, cultural, economic and political change. But is civic service a politically neutral activity? This chapter asks questions about what kinds of civic service are being promoted and argues that different traditions, theoretical approaches and orientations have implications for choices made about service policy and programme design.
Chapter 8
University–Based Community Service and Foreign Debt Relief: New Perspectives on Sustainable Development
Victor Arredondo Álvarez (Mexico)
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Worldwide, there is ongoing discussion about the need for alternative approaches to foreign debt and social investment. Partnerships between public, private and non–governmental agencies can use community service as a tool for the social distribution of knowledge and local empowerment. What is proposed here is to implement an international policy of foreign debt forgiveness to allocate increased resources to quality–assured community service programmes.
Chapter 9
The Impact of Service Projects on Micro–Enterprises in Mexican Marginalised Communities
Alejandro Mungaray Lagarda and María Dolores Sánchez Soler (Mexico)
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In Mexico every higher education student participates in a social service project. This enables universities inter alia to provide technical assistance to micro–enterprises that would otherwise be marginalized owing to poor entrepreneurial knowledge and a lack of access to microfinance. This chapter draws on two surveys which examined the impact of service programmes on the students and the micro–enterprises involved. It demonstrates how research and social service can contribute to community development.

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PART 3:  The Language of Service
Chapter 10
What Should We Call 'Civic Service'? A Commentary
Ian Pawlby (United Kingdom)
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This chapter explores the way in which the concepts of 'service' and 'volunteerism' are understood from a West European perspective. Ian Pawlby considers how a vocabulary could be developed to provide some coherence across different political and economic contexts, and asks what the implications could be for policy, practice and research.
Chapter 11
'Service' and 'Solidaridad' in South American Spanish
María Nieves Tapia (Argentina)
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This chapter analyses the meaning of 'servicio' in South American Spanish and the closely–related concept 'solidaridad' for which, Tapia argues, there is no English equivalent. She teases out the difference between pro–social and altruistic action and explores what implications this has for the conceptualisation and design of service programmes in the region.
Chapter 12
Understanding "Service": Words in the Context of History and Culture
Natasha Menon, Amanda Moore McBride and Michael Sherraden (United States of America)
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How have the notions of service and volunteering evolved across cultures and over time? In this chapter the evolution of the vocabulary of service is traced through five cultures and languages – Greek and Latin, Chinese, Japanese, Swahili and Sanskrit. The chapter then goes on to examine implications for scholarship in the field of service.

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PART 4:  The Practice of Service
Chapter 13
Youth Service for Employment: The Umsobomvu Youth Fund Initiative in South Africa
Penny Foley (South Africa)
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In South Africa today, unemployment is a serious problem facing young people and the country as a whole. This chapter describes how the Umsobomvu Youth Fund, a national agency established by government, is launching a national youth service programme in order to combine service with job creation. This initiative requires substantial funding support and the chapter examines how the fund sees its role and how it is making strategic choices about the beneficiaries of the youth service programmes.
Chapter 14
September 11: "Service and Activism":– A Longitudinal Study of American High School Students
James Youniss and Ed Metz (United States of America)
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This chapter looks at how the reactions of a group of high school students in the USA were altered in the wake of the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001 and suggests that service in the name of a worthy cause can affect changes in the political–moral awareness of young people.
Chapter 15
Developing Citizenship through Service: A Philippines Initiative
Edna A Co (Philippines)
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In response to a narrow nationalism that has emerged in the Philippines (post-9/11 in particular), the University of the Philippines has developed a course on citizenship aimed at broadening students' perspectives of the world beyond the confines of the nation state. Using this work as a basis, this chapter explores how service can promote the values of citizenship, tolerance and democratic participation. It will be of particular interest to people involved in designing service–learning programmes in higher education.
Chapter 16
Service–Learning in Argentina
María Nieves Tapia and María Marta Mallea (Argentina)
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Since 1997 a service–learning movement has been mushrooming in Argentinian schools. The Argentina model of "aprendizaje y servicio solidario" features a diverse range of projects and participants. It is unique in terms of the quality of service–learning projects undertaken, particularly by vulnerable schools in poor areas, and in the social impact of these projects. This chapter examines the 'bottom–up' nature of the Argentina service–learning movement and considers the impact this may have on education reform. In particular it poses the question of whether and how solidarity projects undertaken by young people can work to counter political clientism and the traditional lack of engagement in Argentina.
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