Tag Archives: volunteering

I’m done!

Posted on February 6, 2019 by Vicki Bolton

I finished my PhD. It was quite a while ago now. You can download a pdf here, or via the University of Southampton. In short, I found that volunteering was associated with a small, positive effect on political activity. However, … Continue reading →

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Another advantage of longitudinal data

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Vicki Bolton

I have been having trouble formulating an important argument in one of my PhD papers, so I’m going to rehearse it here.  If anyone could help me to refine it, I’d be eternally grateful if you’d let me know… Longitudinal … Continue reading →

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Survey Data Not Be All And End All – Shock

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Vicki Bolton

Apparently there’s more to research than survey data – who knew? Those who have been paying attention will remember that I have used the National Child Development Study (NCDS) to examine the relationship between volunteering and political activity for the … Continue reading →

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A civic recovery? Or a graph of er… something-or-other.

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Vicki Bolton

Last year, I bought a copy of Political Participation in Britain (Paul Whiteley, 2012).  On page 86 there is a graph (bear with me…) of responses to one of the questions from the British Election Study Continuous Monitoring Survey.  This … Continue reading →

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Time use surveys and volunteering

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Vicki Bolton

I’ve been reading up on the available (UK) time use data on volunteering and found a short technical paper produced by Kimberley Fisher from the Centre for Time Use Research.  The paper’s interesting in its own right, but here’s what … Continue reading →

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Volunteering, social class and some other things

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

The NCVO/VSSN Researching the Voluntary Sector Conference took place in London last week.  Many of the big names were there, but a lot of the stuff I found most interesting came from Jon Dean, a doctoral researcher at the University … Continue reading →

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How many sessions on the Big Society does it take to fill a conference?

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

One of the many joys of the Big Society is the lovely way it lends itself to any number of sets of paired opposites.  Today at the Social Policy Association Conference, I listened to  market liberalism vs. social value (Pete … Continue reading →

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Thinking out loud about differences between surveys

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

What with one thing (daughter’s chickpox) and other (holiday in the US) and all the stuff in between (more bank holidays than you can shake a stick at at), I haven’t been here for a while.  I’m rapidly rolling towards … Continue reading →

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What is volunteering?

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

My supervisor has suggested that I leave this question alone for a little while, so of course I can’t…  (For those of you who can’t countenance studying something before defining it, please bear in mind that I pretty much have … Continue reading →

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Inequality and volunteering – half-formed thought

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

I’ve just been next door talking to Anjelica Finnegan about philanthropy in the US.  The new NCVO Almanac (p.14) shows a nice bubble chart illustrating how much people in different countries give to charity (as a percentage of GDP). Americans give … Continue reading →

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