What motivates civic participation of immigrants? Antecedents and experiences.

This chapter describes the underlying motivation and characteristics of immigrants who actively participate in civic activities of different types, from individual voluntarism to organizational involvement and political participation. Great part of studies on motivations and resources for civic participation regards phenomenon of pro-social behaviour and of a specific form of participation: volunteering (for review, see Brady, Verba, & Schlozman, 1995; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995). The volunteer process model (Snyder, Omoto & Crain, 1999) proposes three stages – antecedents to volunteering (e.g., addresses the characteristics, resources and motives that people bring with them), the experience of volunteering (e.g., emergence of role identity, social relationships that develop over time, and level to which volunteers feel that their work has met their expectations and these of the recipients of their services), and consequences of volunteering (e.g., benefits experienced, barriers). Concerning the antecedents, civic participation is strongly associated with the components of socioeconomic status: education, occupation, and income. Some studies suggest that level of education is the most consistent predictor of volunteering (e.g., Cohen, Vigoda, & Samorly, 2001; Wilson, 2000). One possible explanation of these findings is that better educated people have communications and organisational skills that facilitate civic participation, such as the ability to speak or write well, or organize and taking part in meetings (Brady et al., 1995).