In this blogpost, you can read all about Abbie’s reflections as she did research for the Volunteer Centre during the Summer 2023. Abbie performed thoughtful research and analysis on how the Centre can better collaborate with LSE’s “hidden students,” which you’ll be able to read more about on our blog. 

I had the pleasure of conducting research at the LSE Volunteer Centre. The project focused on how the LSE Volunteer Centre can better collaborate with LSE’s ‘hidden students’. In the context of this research, the phrase ‘hidden student’ describes how the perspectives and experiences of BME students (black and ethnic minority) are routinely relegated to the periphery in elite spaces like the LSE. As the Volunteer Centre is interested in exploring what it means to diversify student volunteering, I interviewed a range of BME students that identified with the experience of “hiddenness” at the School. As my project marks the first research consultancy project focusing on this subject matter, the central objective was to gather foundational knowledge about BME students engagement with the LSE Volunteer and volunteering more broadly.

A key aspect of this research was to explore how these students conceptualise volunteering. Participants framed volunteering in multiple ways, however, in reflecting on their positions as minoritized students, participants gave sustained attention to the links between volunteering and employability. Participants particularly elaborated on how receiving skills is something that volunteers expect to gain in exchange for the voluntary services that they provide. Participants emphasized that while they were not exchanging their services for money, they were exchanging voluntary services in hopes of enhancing their career prospects. This particular conceptualization of volunteering – in terms of employability – can be understood against a backdrop of an increasingly competitive global labour market, economic uncertainty and the drive students have to enhance future career opportunities through volunteering, as earlier research finds.

Connected to this framing of volunteering, was participants discussion of the hierarchical arrangement of different volunteering opportunities. For my participants, this relates to how different volunteering roles are assigned varying levels of ‘value’ based on the skillset that volunteers expect to gain. For example, one participant elaborated on the difference in value between volunteering as a researcher and volunteering on a shop floor. Participants discussed how this hierarchical arrangement of different volunteering opportunities presents BME volunteers with challenges; BME groups typically have restricted access to ‘valuable’ volunteering opportunities. National research on volunteering confirms the finding that BME groups are excluded from specific volunteering opportunities and are even more likely to have poorer experiences as volunteers.

My research has gone some way in briefly sketching out how the current economic landscape significantly shapes what constitutes ‘valuable’ volunteering roles for student volunteers. Yet, it is clear that the economic landscape also generates considerable competition between students for valuable volunteering opportunities as well as forms of exclusion of BME groups. This research has demonstrated that there is room for key stakeholders to critically think of ways to pour into BME student volunteers. How might charity organisations and other relevant stakeholders pour into BME (student) volunteers in the context of economic uncertainty? Is simply through widening accessing to (valuable) volunteering opportunities or is there perhaps space for charity organisations to radically expand or reshape what counts as ‘valuable’ voluntary work? What would radically expanding the scope of ‘valuable’ volunteering roles entail?

If Abbie inspired you to volunteer or you’d like to learn more about voluntary research opportunities, check out one of our other ongoing opportunities or book a one-to-one with David Coles, the Volunteer Centre Manager if you have more questions. And why not follow us on Twitter, and Instagram to stay up-to-date with our events and opportunities and read our blog for more volunteering tips and stories.