Browsing by Subject "Community service"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    “I Am So Angry I Could . . . Help!” The nature of Empathic Anger
    (2018) Bringle, Robert G.; Hedgepath, Ashley; Wall, Elizabeth
    Empathy is widely viewed as a precursor to civic engagement, a mediator of other responses during civic engagement, and an outcome resulting from civic engagement. However, empathic sadness is can be biased toward helping a lone victim, a member of an in-group, a person who is physically nearby, and an individual who is personally identified. Alternatively, empathic anger occurs when an observer experiences anger, rather than sadness, on behalf of a victim as the basis for inferring social injustice and for taking action. Empathic anger represents an untapped dimension of motivation that is not captured within other approaches to motives for civic engagement. This article details three studies which found that those reporting higher empathic anger were altruistic, not aggressive, oriented toward advocacy rather than charitable service, nonprejudicial, endorsed a social justice perspective, and active in communities outside (and independent) of campus activities. Implications for future research on motives for civic engagement are presented as well as implications for designing service-learning courses to promote empathic anger as a basis for action directed at social justice issues.
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    Informing practice and sabotaging membership growth: an ideological rhetorical analysis of discursive materials from Kiwanis International
    (2015-08) Stokes, Tonja LaFaye; Dobris, Catherine A.; Parrish-Sprowl, John; Goering, Elizabeth M.
    This study utilizes an ideological rhetorical analysis, applying Marxist and Feminist lenses, to artifacts from Kiwanis International, a prominent global service organization. These artifacts are: "The Permanent Objects of Kiwanis," guiding principles that were codified in 1924; "The Man Who Was God": a brief story about transforming from Kiwanis member to "Kiwanian," published in 1935 and 1985, respectively; and the 2012 "Join the Club" Membership Brochure. The rhetoric of discursive materials is one of the most salient representations of group ideology. In turn, ideology, particularly when it reflects and perpetuates social hegemony, has a normalizing effect on itself. Ideology shapes identity; identity shapes strategies to set process norms that create social cohesion. Norms of social cohesion become culture; culture reinforces ideology. When these components mirror social hegemony and replicate hegemonic power, they create institutions, like service organizations; these institutions then legitimate and normalize positions of social privilege. Ultimately, ideology and social hegemony reveal themselves through organizational and member practices and organizationally-produced discursive material. The purpose of this study is to analyze the historical, socio-political, and socio-cultural roots of Kiwanis International in order to draw logical conclusions about the organization's ideology for the purposes of understanding how that ideology contributes to, justifies, and perpetuates an unconscious, neo-colonial view of philanthropy. Kiwanis International, on an organizational (macro) level and at the club/member (micro) level, is structured around positions of racial, ethnic, socio-economic, linguistic, gender, and religious privilege, and so mimics the hegemonic power centers and dominant ideologies of society at large. In turn, the products and practices of the organization reflect these positions of privilege and inhibits the organization's ability to attract traditionally excluded, disenfranchised, or under-represented groups. Understanding that it is a contentious and futile to simply point where power relations exist and assert themselves, this study emphasizes where "othering" occurs in hopes of mitigating relations of domination and oppression between Kiwanis members and perspective members, and of moving forward the interests of those who have not traditionally been counted among Kiwanis' members but whose presence could save the organization.