THE YOUNG VOLUNEERS An Evaluation of Three Programs of the American Friends Service Committee NATIONAL OPINION RESEARCH CENTER University of Chicago Report No. 71 June, 1959 --- "c.y-". NATIONAL OPINION RESEARCH CENTER University of Chicago ClydeW. Hart , Director Herbert Goldstein , Business Manager Survey No. 411 Robert A. Dentler , Study Di.rector with the assistance of Margallen Hanna Ficht and Carolyn Huson This study was supported by theSchwarzhaupt Foundation \\-,\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\' \\\'"\\\ ,\ :-, \\ \\\\,\\\ " \\\\\\, \' "\\,\\. \ , \ , ," ""' "' ; ,: , ,'- \\' \\" ,\ " \\/. -- / './'- ' -'\\..;, '-"""- "'- -.--,, \i \ , 9 Alii 1 11 \W\V" .- I J\, 1:,:;; \I . J J/ \:L 1\: " I\\ " ! i :;1' :F;)jl i (h, \11 ,.i \\\\\I\ /c:'\ ,7: Ii: lill T - \\.\:\1i \\\\\ 1\, i r J '-i 1.- I - ' h_._ PREFACE The ' moral unrest' so deeply penetrating all western societies , the growing vagueness and inde- cision of personalities , the almost complete dis.. appearance of the ' strong and steady character ' of old times , in short , the rapid and general increase of Bohemianism and Bolshevism in all societies is an effect of the fact that not only the early pri- mary group controlling all interests of its members . but even the special modern group dividing with many others the task of organizing permanently the attitudes of each of its members, is more and more losing ground. The pace of social evolution has become so rapid that special groups are ceasing to be permanent and stable enough to organize and maintain organized complexes of attitudes of their members 8 8 Thomas and Znaniecki The Polish Peasant in Europe ica , II 64. It is toward the ends of confronting the oral un- rest" of the modern American city and aiding the restless that the Internes in Community Service Projects of the Amer- ican Friends Service Committee are dedicated. Like their older and better known counterpart, the vol nteer work camp, Community Service proj ects are intended to bring young adults regardless of race , nationality or religion, together in a primary group designed to serve the needs of city dwellers As many of our present social problems have their source in the restless movements of masses of the population out of a society based on primary relationships into the less controlled existence of life in great cities, the Service Committee has worked to find an urban parallel to the rural program of the volunteer work camp. Among its experiments are two programs (Internes in Community Service , who work in private community organization and welfare agencies , and In- ternes in Industry, who labor in city factories and ware- houses) the quality of which we want to assess in this sociological field study. lYe know the college students who have served as In- ternes generally praise their periences as memorab Ie and instructive. But exactly who volunteers to serve, and why? And what are the effects of this urban exposure and group ad- venture? This sociological evaluation of three action programs sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee , namely the Internes in Community Service, Internes in Industry, and Institutional Service Units , has dual objectives. It is fore- most an evaluation of the relative effectiveness of each of these programs in influencing the social and political ma- turity of program participants. It reports information col- lected from the young adults who have participated in these programs from 1951 through 1958. In this respect, our aim is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each program as reflected in positive and negative changes in the character of participants. The focus is centered upon the Internes in Community Service. The other programs are used in part as controls for evaluation. The audience for this evaluation is principally the Service Committee staff professionals in Philadelphia and in Regional Offices who guide and direct the Domestic proj ects Program, and the committees of laymen within the Society of Friends who collaborate in planning the programs and who have a direct hand in the formation of program policies. If the study is released for general circulation , h 7ever , we are convinced the evaluation would prove helpful to program ad- ministrators , community organizations, and educators generally. It would interest many former Internes as well insofar as iii they could compare their individual experiences with those of hundreds of others. A secondary obj ective dictated the content of this study. We have attempted to create an academically relevant sociologv of an action progr . We think our method and our findings constitute a modest contribution to a growing lit- erature on the combined impact of a formal organization and an informal group upon the attitudes and behaviors of indi- viduals. From this point of view , the report is focused on the i1micro"sociological" sources of attitude change. The Internes in Community Ser ice Evaluation began with a request from the Schwarzhaupt Foundation. For several years a financial contributor to the Community Service Pro- jects , the Foundation Board was interested in an assessment of the effectiveness of the projects in influencing the char- acter development of young adults. Discussion between Carl Tjerandsen , Executive Secretary of the Schwarzhaupt Foundation Thelma How , Friends Service Committee Director of Domestic Projects (and other AFSe representatives), and National Opinion Research Center staff members , led to preparation of the eval- uation in January, 1958. In fact, interest in a systematic evaluation had been stimulated somewhat earlier by correspond- ence between Ralph Tyler , Carl Tjerandsen and Clyde Hart , all of whom share a strong concern with educational research. Joint discussion between sponsors and research staff led to an agreement that the evaluation would B2 include coverage of the services Internes give to private community organizations , settlement houses, and service agencies. The dispersion and diversity of such agencies seemed to foreclose the possibility of making generalizations. There was also agreement that evaluation was to focus upon the effects of proj ect experience upon the volunteer participants , in pref- erence to program content itself or to quality of direction. The Schwarzhaupt Foundation provided a research grant in support of the study and the American Friends Service Com- mittee gave freely of the time and resources of its Philadelphia Office personnel in completing it. of course, the Friends Service Committee itself wanted evidence of the effectiveness of the pro8ram , but the findings and conclusions of this re- port are intended to be neither praiseful nor to place blame. The study was deliberately given over to one who is not a mem- ber of the Society of Friends nor attached in any way to the APSC organization. Realism counterbalanced this obj ectivity in the person of the Assistant Study Director , Margallen Hanna Fichter, who as a Friend has participated in both In- ternes in Community Service and Internes in Industry proj ects and who , as a sociologist , combined technical skills with her familiarity with proj ect life. 'He eJcpect that the primary audience for this report will consist of non-technical persons. Therefore, statistical tables and tests have been removed from the text and placed at the close of the chapter where they may be reached with ease by those most concerned with the burden of evidence. Instru- ments for measurement have been included in Appendix I , while additional data are provided in tables in Appendb II. The reader who seeks the core of this report is ad- vised to read chapters iv, v, and viii, as these convey find- ings about Internes as they were measured before and after their proj eet experience. Because of the great preliminary work in evaluation studies by Henry Riecken in his Volunteer Work Camp (Cambridge: Addison-Wesley, 1952), and by Herbert Hyman and Charles Wright in Youth in Transition (Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research , 1956), we have been able to concentrate analytic effort on cpynti for the sources of various changes in the attitudes of proj ect par- ticipants. These and earlier studies erected an impressive " (p. scaffolding from which to construct evaluative indices of ac- tion programs and their effects. We have borrowed heavily from the work of these craftsmen and have sought to contribute part of an additional superstructure, namely, some systematic explanation of why programs effect participants as they appear to do. To a large extent , the question of whether work camps citizenship programs , or volunteer service programs do influ- ence the maturity of participants had been answered unequivo- cally prior to this study. Aware of this, we attempted to design a field study which would allow for increased statis- tical control over variable sources of influence in order to address the less well answered questions of how and why this influence is transmitted. It was toward this end that data from participants in Internes in Industry projects and from Institutional Service Units were collected. As Riecken points out in his discussion of program evaluation procedures, he social scientist should attempt to control variations in . the participants and in the situation and events of the actual program 24). We had no wish to attempt to control either experimentally, but 'as we shall demonstrate, the three programs , when con- trasted systematically, open statistical avenues to control-- the only means available for explanatory analysis. Thanks are due especially to the Schwarzhaupt Foundation for its readiness in agreeing to expansion of the original study de- sign , intended at first only to concern Internes in Community Service, and to the generous response of the Service Committee in this regard. This study has depended upon the collaboration of many individuals. The essential contribution was that made by the program participants and alumni who so willingly spent many hours filling out questionnaires, responding to inter- viewers , and tolerating first hand observation by outsiders. Maj or credit is due Carl Tj erandsen and Thelma Haw , whose support and understanding are responsible for originating the evaluation.