Urgent calls have gone forth--from the White House and Congress,
from schools, churches, synagogues, and other agencies--for
Americans to become more involved in caring for the needy and in
serving their communities. And as federal and state governments
across the nation cut back on aid to the poor and disabled, the
role of volunteerism can only grow in importance. But how can we
inspire caring behavior in our young when so many adults seem
indifferent to the problems of the needy, when many problems (such
as homelessness) seem beyond individual effort, and when agencies
often come under fire for ineffectiveness if not corruption?
Drawing on deeply moving personal accounts from young people who
have become involved in community service, as well as on data from
recent national surveys, Learning to Care looks at why teenagers
become involved in volunteer work, what problems and pressures they
face, and what we can do to nurture caring in our youth. Robert
Wuthnow's intimate interviews bring to life the stories of high
school student volunteers, teenagers such as Tanika Lane, a
freshman who works with Literacy Education and Direction (LEAD), a
job-training program for inner-city kids, and Amy Stone, a
homecoming queen and student-body president at a suburban southern
school who organizes rallies for AIDS awareness. Through these
profiles, Wuthnow shows that caring is not innate but learned, in
part from the spontaneous warmth of family life, and in part from
finding the right kind of volunteer work. He contends that
volunteers' sense of service is shaped by what they find in school
service clubs, in shelters for the homeless, in working with AIDS
victims, or in tutoring inner-city children. And Wuthnow also
argues that the best environment to nurture the helping impulse is
the religious setting, where in fact the great bulk of volunteering
in America takes place. In these organizations, as well as in
schools and community agencies, teenagers can find the role models
and moral incentives that will instill a sense of service that they
can then carry into their adult life.
Robert Wuthnow is one of our leading commentators on religious life
in America, the author of Acts of Compassion, which was nominated
for both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Learning to
Care, the sequel to that highly acclaimed volume, offers an
eye-opening (and somewhat reassuring) portrait of volunteerism
among America's youth, as it helps lay the groundwork for teaching
our children to care.
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