Event Volunteering as a Form of Civic Engagement: The Case of Young Volunteers’ Involvement at EXPO Milano 2015

The phenomenon of episodic volunteering, described as people volunteering for less than three weeks per year generally during some events, is growing in popularity among young people. Among 64% of the students of 5 different countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, U.K., and U.S.A.) who are engaged in voluntary service are episodic volunteers. As for the traditional volunteerism, episodic volunteering, especially the one related to some particular events, can be considered a form of civic engagement and a vital activity for communities. Literature highlights few evidence based data related to event volunteering especially in terms of who these volunteers are, motivations that drive their choices to volunteer, experiences and outcomes of it. Moreover, most of these data have been collected during sport events where the participation can be explained as a state of motivation towards personal interest in the sport. This study will consider, for the first time, a particular activity of event volunteering experienced during World Exposition Milano 2015. Volunteers (N = 1211; age ≤ 30) were recruited at EXPO Milano 2015 (these data refer to a first group of volunteers, since EXPO Milano 2015 is still ongoing). The average age of the volunteers was 21.93 years (SD = 2.88). Most of the participants were females (68%), born in Italy (91%), students (77,6%), holding a high school diploma (57,6%) and a degree (28,4%). A profile of these volunteers and a cluster analysis on the antecedents, experiences and consequences of volunteering, especially in terms of factors fostering and/or hindering youth civic engagement, will be proposed. Clusters will be compared on intention to continue volunteering, social support, and trust. Data collection and analysis are still in progress.