RuEn

Journal section "Social development"

Charity Work of Local Community: Results of the Sociological Research in the Russian Region

Ukhanova Y.V., Leon D., Schelwald R.S.

Volume 14, Issue 1, 2021

Ukhanova Yu.V., Leon D., Schelwald R. Charity work of local community: results of the sociological research in the Russian region. Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast, 2021, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 169–185. DOI: 10.15838/esc.2021.1.73.12

DOI: 10.15838/esc.2021.1.73.12

Abstract   |   Authors   |   References
In recent years, the participation of citizens in the solution of social problems and society’s self-organization has become a lot more meaningful research agenda. Public practices are perceived as the most important resource for socio-economic development at the state and local levels. The purpose of the work is to identify the development level and features of motivation for participation/non-participation in charitable activities from the standpoint of the Russian region’s local community. We present an approach to the essence and components of charity on the basis of a critical analysis of academic literature. By testing the author’s sociological tools (the mass public opinion survey in the Vologda Oblast, 2019; N=1900), we revealed the level of local community’s involvement in certain charity forms (helping behavior, monetary donations, volunteerism as part of public organizations’ activities). A low level of population’s participation in formal charitable practices, related to work of voluntary associations, and high informal charitable activity in various forms of helping behavior draw some attention. Using the factor analysis of hidden variables, the authors determined that social norms and religious values are among the main factors that encourage a local community to engage in charity work. In addition, we revealed that the formed idea about the predominance of other entities’ social responsibility (primarily – the state) and suspicious attitude to a charity system become serious obstacles to the inclusion of a local community in charitable activities. The study on the current state of charitable activity in Russia’s local communities can provide an empirical basis and theoretical impetus for basic research in this area and for practical work aimed at studying specific types of activities in order to increase population’s involvement in local charity

Keywords

territorial development, social capital, volunteerism, local community, charity, helping behavior, monetary donations

View full article