Introduction

This chapter turns to investigate volunteering, much vaunted in recent years as a valuable means by which young people may gain valuable experience for work and careers. The 2008–12 economic recession fuelled this discourse more powerfully, and it became mainstreamed into government advice to young people struggling to access jobs. As such, the distinction between traditional understandings of volunteering as an altruistic activity and volunteering as working unpaid has become rather messily blurred. Volunteering has thus emerged as a powerful technology by which to govern young people, not only to become individually accountable for their work futures, but to develop a range of other ‘responsible’ performances and subjectivities associated with active citizenship.

This chapter commences with a discussion of the discursive shift in youth volunteering that has transformed traditional conceptualizations of volunteering as a performance of active citizenship to seeing the activity in more instrumental terms. We then analyze the policy context, to argue that policies to encourage more youth volunteering are based on a conundrum: the fact that there is no robust evidence to support the view that volunteering is a beneficial means by which to access paid employment. Our case study of a volunteering organization in Scotland that delivers bespoke employability training to young people and includes daily spells of volunteering in a range of voluntary sector workplaces provides some insight into why this might be the case. A lack of interest in young people's development by some of the managers in work experience placements can lead to the young people ‘time filling’ with meaningless, poor-quality work. Further, the lack of engagement by private sector employers makes it difficult for young people to gain experience in organizations offering paid employment opportunities. It is important to recognize, however, that paid employment is not an appropriate outcome for every young person. Our research also underscores the significant contribution of trainers to other beneficial outcomes of volunteering programmes, such as the confidence and wellbeing of young trainees. For some, the enhanced levels of self-worth which the programme delivered was a success in its own right.