The Baby Boomer generation in the United States is growing older, and the number of adults age 65 years or older is expected to double by 2050. The increase in older adults combined with the reduction in services to older adults has created a gap in available social services and volunteers are needed to fill those gaps. This quantitative, nonexperimental study was designed to identify the motivations of volunteers who served the socialization needs of isolated older adults in a rural U.S. community. The functional approach theory was utilized to explain how volunteers engage in the same volunteer activity for different reasons. The Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) was used to gather data on the motivations of Little Brothers- Friends of the Elderly (LBFOTE) volunteers as well as demographic data. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation coefficients, ANOVAs, and ANCOVAs to determine the relationships between the 6 functions of the VFI and demographic variables. The majority of volunteers of LBFOTE in this study were White married women with a college degree who were over 56 years of age, retired, and had volunteered for greater than 1 year. This demographic showed that the LBFOTE volunteer base is aging; 70% of volunteers were age 56 and older and 92.6% of volunteers had served for more than one year, indicating that the LBFOTE retains volunteers. Participants identified humanitarian and altruistic reasons as their motivation to volunteer, giving these the highest scores on VFI Values function. The findings promote positive social change by providing information to inform recruiting and retaining volunteers by targeting motives and untapped demographics, contributing to a culture of serving the socialization needs of isolated older adults.

Aktuell studie syftar till att undersöka motivationsgrunder för ideellt arbete inom den sociala sektorn. Som ett exempel på ideella organisationer inom den sociala sektorn har tjej- och transjourer valts ut. Åtta kvalitativa, semi-strukturerade individuella intervjuer har genomförts med fyra aktiva volontärer och fyra tidigare aktiva volontärer. Intervjupersonerna kommer från tre olika jourer. En tematisk analys har gjorts på materialet och fem teman framträder – feministiskt grundade värderingar, relationen till de andra volontärerna, individuella förutsättningar, feedback direkt från stödsökande och genom gruppen samt feedback och stöd från organisationen. Dessa teman kan förstås som både främjande och hämmande för motivationen och presenteras i en tidslinje då motivationsgrunderna varierar över tid. De teoretiska utgångspunkter som används för att förstå resultatet är sex motivationsgrunder enligt Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) samt en teoretisk ram utvecklad av Marta, Guglielmetti och Pozzi kring specifika mönster för ungas motivation. Viktiga slutsatser som dras är att intervjupersonerna drivs av mer än en motivationsgrund, att sammansättningen av motivationsgrunder förändras över tid men att de genomgående starkaste drivkrafterna är feministiskt grundade värderingar och relationen till de andra volontärerna.

<div>Service-learning is an organized volunteer activity in which learners serve the community while utilizing and enhancing their own skills, thus benefiting both the learners and the community. Studies have shown that students gain various benefits from participating in a service-learning activity, especially in their academic skills and civic growth through continued reflections (Eyler, Giles, & Braxton, 1997; Eyler & Giles, 1999; Billig, 2000; Grassi et al., 2004; Steinberg, Bringle, & Williams, 2010), often increasing their motivation to learn the related subject (Steinberg et al., 2010). Service-learning has been implemented in foreign language courses in the United States, especially Spanish (Barreneche & Ramos-Flores, 2013). However, service-learning literature on Japanese as a foreign language is limited.</div><div>The researcher founded a service-learning program in the Japanese language. In the program, the university students enrolled in intermediate- or higher-level Japanese courses help Japanese children with their schoolwork as volunteer tutors. The researcher conducted a qualitative case study on four of the student-tutors to examine the program's potential benefits to maintain and enhance the student-tutors' various motivations toward learning Japanese. The Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) (Clary, Snyder, & Ridge, 1998) was used as an analysis scheme, which reports six most commonly found functions, or varying motivations, for participating in a volunteer activity. The student-tutors indicated five out of the six VFI functions, showing a connection between their service-learning experience and their personal growth. They built strong connections with the Japanese community and kept their motivation to improve their Japanese skills to better help the children. It is hoped that the present research will contribute to providing an example of Japanese service-learning in the U.S.</div>