It is no secret that the world is plagued with social issues. Through infomercials, e-mails, word of mouth, or personal experiences, the vast majority of we have been continuously showered with statistics relating to how many people die from hunger every sixty seconds, or how many people lose their homes every day; however, many of us think we are so disconnected from social issues that although we acknowledge something needs to be done, we may not feel that we are the ones that can help. Indirect relief—such as donating money to an organization that helps combat a social issue—is one of the most common ways people show that they want to support a cause. However, direct relief—volunteering to give vaccinations to the poor, cooking food at a shelter, providing shelter for the homeless, or even scouting—is less common and more challenging for people to commit to due to time constraints, logistical challenges, or outright fear. Due to the uncommonness of voluntary service, it seems that the only people who we acknowledge as providing community service are “good” or “bad”. The good people are the ones who go “out of their way” to help others in need and the bad people are those who “are required by law to perform service” as a form of punishment. Why must community service be considered a good deed OR a form of punishment? Why is it not a norm and how can we make our society more open to action so that community service becomes a norm?
In “Where Need Meets Opportunity”, Jane Quinn identifies early adolescence as a “period where individual interests, skills, and preferences become salient” (96). However, throughout her article, her primary focus is on teen development through the use of pro-social programs and extra-curricular activities. While some of the programs—such as boy scouts and girl scouts—incorporate community service into their missions, the vast majority of the programs are concerned solely with the healthy growth of teens and their relationships with peers. This is inherently good, but it does not solve the issue of making community service a normal activity. For one, the participation rate in these programs is consistently low. Many of the programs are not available to all kids equally. Those in low-income areas who many would say are “in desperate need of these programs” have a much more difficult time accessing them than those in high-income areas may not have as many social issues to confront(Quinn 105). Another issue is that these programs are available ONLY for youth and culminate in a “graduation-like ceremony” that, in my opinion, signifies that the end has come and the youth are no longer bound to the mission of the program.
In “Reading and Writing the World”, Betty Smith Franklin discusses the importance of charity, civic engagement and social action in our society. She acknowledges that charity in and of itself “does not require the helper to move through interpersonal reality to an examination of social and political reality or to call accepted practice into question” (25). In other words, if one chooses to only write a check, they can easily avoid asking why a given social issue is a reality in our world while simultaneously acknowledging that there is indeed an issue. It seems as though through her domain of social action, there is an attempt to solve the issue of the lack of active questioning in charity. However, another issue arises. While social action “claims a vision and makes active and accessible steps toward that vision”, it does not solve the issue of getting people to overcome their real fears of community service (Franklin 26). Not all forms of social action are popular and furthermore, many forms of social action—such as boycotts—may prove to be unpopular within a given society and can even go as far as to endanger the lives of those who decide to take on this social action.
Both Jane Quinn and Betty Smith Franklin provide real solutions that have been tested and tried in real-world applications. However, the one thing that the two others have in common is that their proposals are not socially “normal”. They are constructed in a way that it appears as though a limited population—the affluent, well-protected, and/or well educated—are not only the only ones who can combat social issues, but are also the only ones responsible for combating social issues. These two authors show little attempt to find ways to include people of various social classes and backgrounds into becoming open-action individuals. They only provide barriers as to why different people cannot access different programs or why some people can avoid confronting social problems through charity while others cannot.
Through my research, I will compile information from multiple authors and synthesize their information to better understand why community service and open-actionness are not cultural norms in America and how and where to start the process of transitioning into a culture in which there are virtually no social barriers, stigmas, or criteria that needs to be met in order for people to volunteer simply because it is just a primary trait of our way of life.
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Quinn, Jane. “Where Need Meets Opportunity: Youth Development
Programs for Early Teens.”The Future of Children 9.2 (Fall 1999):
96-116. JSTOR. Web. 27 Dec 2010.
Franklin, Betty. “Reading and Writing the World; Charity, Civic Engagement,
and Social Action.” Reflections 1.2 (Fall 2000): 24-29
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