Withdrawing from volunteering. A qualitative study based on the example of subjects from immigrant families working in charity organisations.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Chantal Munsch
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2013 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 236860160

With the publically postulated rise in the importance of civil society, volunteering is becoming increasingly relevant to social participation. At the same time, socially disadvantaged groups and minorities are under-represented among volunteers. While there is a wealth of research into individual motives for starting and continuing volunteering, the aim of the submitted research project is to reconstruct the processes leading people to stop volunteering. It will study the significance of social differences during this process based on the example of subjects from immigrant families who have stopped volunteering at mainstream German charity organisations. This step is seen in the context of, and as the end of, a process of entering into volunteering. Research will be carried out into processes of entering into and stopping volunteering; processes seen as a reality which is socially constructed during interaction between the field of the mainstream organisation and the person interested in participating. For this reason, the perspective of the individual participant who stops volunteering will be linked to the perspective of the field. The former will be ascertained using themed narrative interviews and the latter by means of group discussions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants