Do Race, Ethnicity, Citizenship and Socio-economic Status Determine Civic-Engagement?

The Corporation recognizes that racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, low-income youth, non-college educated individuals and the disabled may be underrepresented in service and volunteering programs as well as in other civic engagement activities. In response, the Corporation has decided to make increasing access to service and volunteering for individuals from disadvantaged circumstances one of its strategic focus areas. In order to pursue this focus the corporation is exploring ways to expand its outreach to underrepresented communities and to build partnerships aimed at addressing the challenges involved in recruiting and retaining underrepresented groups in service and volunteering programs and activities. This paper is aimed at providing background information that will hopefully prove helpful in forming these partnerships. In addition, the paper will assess variations in volunteering and civic engagement by race and ethnicity, and citizenship status while controlling for differences in family income and education.