Volunteer or Voluntold: Does Required Service Benefit Youth?

Over the past 20 years, many U.S. high schools have adopted mandatory community service policies. These policies vary greatly based on state and district—Maryland and the District of Columbia, for instance, have state-wide regulation that requires high school students to complete 75 to 100 hours of community service to graduate. Other policies allow youth to receive course credit for participating in community service or permit districts to adopt service requirements for high school graduations.

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Mandatory community service programs were implemented to help connect youth to others, to teach them how to contribute to their community, and to improve academic performance and civic learning.

However, the idea of mandatory community service seems counter-intuitive and has been the source of controversy. Parents, students, and even school officials have filed lawsuits challenging the legality of mandatory service policies, claiming that they are unethical and undermine teens' motivation to volunteer on their own (e.g., Andersen, 1999; Smolla, 2000). Proponents of this view argue that mandating community service will lead youth to believe that they should only help others when they receive an immediate benefit in return, and thus ultimately discourage volunteering later in life (Stukas, Snyder, & Clary, 1999).

Concerns about mandatory service have been taken very seriously by legal scholars. In general, this work has concluded that mandatory service is legally permissible under federal law because “community service programs amount to nothing more than conditions attached to the ‘privilege’ of free public education and thus pose no constitutional problems whatsoever” (Smolla, 2000). The key here is legally permissible—there are many other ethical concerns that have been raised, and a larger review of these issues can be found here.

But what about the benefits? Does mandatory service help improve civic development or does it undermine motivation to participate in voluntary service? These are questions that have been addressed by developmental science.

There is little evidence to support that mandating community service undermines motivation for youth to engage in future service. In fact, there is some evidence to indicate the opposite.

Most research has either found that mandatory service is linked with heightened intent to engage in future volunteering (Metz & Youniss, 2003, 2005) or has not found links between mandatory service and intent to volunteer (Henderson, Brown, Prancer, & Ellis-Hale, 2007; Kim & Morgül, 2017).

This research may seem contradictory to other developmental research and theory that stresses the importance of autonomy for personal motivation and healthy development (Ryan & Deci, 2000). One possibility is that mandatory service may deter intent to engage in future service if youth reflect on their experience and do not find any value in participation other than to fulfill the mandate (Stukas et al., 1999).

This means that the types of experiences youth have within their community service activities may matter more than whether participation is mandatory.

Service experiences greatly vary, and the level of enjoyment or meaning youth derive from their service may be tied to the type of activity youth perform. Volunteer experiences that provide teenagers with an opportunity to grow, to make friends, to reflect on social problems, and to cultivate a sense of purpose and enjoyment provide them with greater benefits (including greater intention to volunteer in the future) compared to those without these opportunities (Bennett, 2009; Henderson et al., 2007; Metz, McLellan, & Youniss, 2003; Reinders & Youniss, 2006). Thus, mandated service that involves organizational tasks (e.g., clearing floors, filing papers) or other types of activities that do not provide youth with high-quality experiences, may not be serving their purpose.

Parents, teachers, and school administrators can help youth become involved in high-quality service activities, and even increase the quality of community service experiences within their community.

So how can we make sure youth are participating in high-quality experiences? Here are a few tips:

1. Help youth access service that they find meaningful for their mandatory requirements. Ask teenagers what issues they view as being important to address and work with them to find the right community service experiences.
2. Talk to teens about their community service experiences. Community service programs are more beneficial when they allow youth to reflect on social problems and form their own beliefs about their experiences (Yates & Youniss, 1996). Talking to youth about their community service experience is one way to improve the quality of engagement and thus increase potential benefits.
3. Continue to provide teens with opportunities to engage in service after their requirement is fulfilled. Although some youth may begin participating in community service because it was mandatory, they may continue to participate in service because it can be personally rewarding. Providing teens with continued opportunities to participate in service may help further cultivate civic development.