This study extends a line of research focused on motivational factors that contribute to first-year students' reasons for engaging in service-learning. Among first-year students, altruistically-motivated students (Christensen, Stritch, Kellough, & Brewer, 2015) and minority students (Pearl & Christensen, 2016) were not only more…

Stakeholders have long been concerned about high school drop-out rates and associated achievement gaps between groups, specifically racial, of high school students. While significant improvements have been made to these drop-out rates at the national level, the largest group of drop-out students continues to be those of Hispanic heritage. Research…

Among college students, public service motives influence choice of major or job. Although the link between public service motives and prosocial behavior has been established among working adults, researchers have not adequately examined how these motives affect the reported behavior of precareer students. In this article, the authors explored how…

Colleges and universities have a long-standing tradition of preparing students to be civically engaged (Colby, Beaumont, Ehrlich, & Corngold, 2007; Jacoby, 2009; Kezar, 2002). In response to a decline in civic engagement among college students and the greater American public, colleges and universities began offering a wide array of civic…

Over the past 25 years, there has been a call for change within American higher education, with an increasing number of foundations, national organizations, and individual researchers pushing for institutions of higher education to become more involved with the surrounding communities and American society (Campus Compact, 2011; Glass &…

This paper was developed in the interest of extending the reach and benefits of national and community service programs to larger numbers of persons from disadvantaged populations. In particular, this paper is intended to increase understanding of both challenges and opportunities that may accompany efforts to increase the participation by…

Using panel data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS), the authors first analyze how civic engagement (measured in terms of community service and participation in student government) undertaken at the high school level varies across race/ethnicity and gender. The findings indicate that female high school students tend to…

For more than 250 years, Americans have shared a vision of a democracy in which all citizens understand, appreciate, and engage actively in civic and political life. In recent decades, however, increasing numbers of Americans have disengaged from civic and political institutions such as voluntary associations, religious congregations,…