Volunteering Experiences of Young People Who Experience Social Marginalization: Examining the Impact on Their Identity and Lives

Voluntary work provides a potential context for youth to enhance competence and healthy identity development. Yet most engaged youth come from well-educated, middle-class backgrounds, underrepresenting youth from lower socio-economic backgrounds in both volunteering and corresponding research. Therefore, this study investigated life story interviews of 13 adolescents and emerging adults (age range 14–23 years; 6 females, 7 males) who were identified as socially marginalized according to social, educational, and economic criteria to understand their motives for volunteering and their identity and competence development throughout. Results indicate that youth from lower socio-economic backgrounds volunteered to find social belonging, appreciation, and personal agency, thereby growing apart from their previous background. The longer participants volunteered, the more they integrated their competence development into their narrative identity and changed their views on themselves. Overall, this study adds to the growing body of research underscoring the importance of life narratives in substantiating identity development prompted by volunteering.