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3 Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Q. 1 (1974)

handle is hein.journals/npvolsq3 and id is 1 raw text is: THE SOCIALIZATION AND POLITICIZATION OF VISTA VOLUNTEERS: SEX AND GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES* David Gottlieb University of Houston The major purpose of this paper is to identify differences and similarities among people of different ages who have shared a common experience. The shared experience was involvement in VISTA--a movement for social change. VISTA was initiated in 1964 as part of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity. The programmatic concept as well as the projected public image was based upon the idea of a domestic Peace Crops. The VISTA goal was to recruit, train, and place volunteers in varied poverty settings. Volunteers were assigned to different kinds of communities and social service agencies. Volunteers, for example, worked in Job Corps Centers, Community Action Programs, Indian reservations, migrant camps, drug education and rehabilitation programs, and legal service centers. Regardless of the setting or specific task each volunteer was expected to assist in a process which would enhance the upward social and economic mobility of the poor. In the summer of 1971, at the request of President Nixon, VISTA as well as Peace Corps, and other federally funded voluntary programs were merged into a single centralized agency entitled ACTION. VISTA policy with regard to recruitment underwent three significant age related changes from the time of its inception to the present. In Stage I the primary emphasis was upon recruiting volunteers of all ages. Stage II occurred during the years of student activism and reflected a policy geared to *Revised version of a paper delivered at the 67th Association. August. 1972. channelize the energies and commitment of the young. Young people were reminded that if they were not part of the solution they were in fact part of the problem. Youth, particularly college students, were challenged to match their rhetoric with deeds. Stage III represents current VISTA policy with emphasis upon the recruitment of older people and those with professional certification. The current recruitment policy is in no small part a result of voluntary militancy and activism which occureed during Stage II. The people studied here were volunteers who served in VISTA during the years 1965 through 1970. More specifically our concern will be with providing answers to the following questions: 1. In what ways are age and sex differences associated with variations in the reasons volunteers give for their enrollment in VISTA? 2. What differences and similarities are found in expressed political and social attitudes of volunteers? In what ways are certain attitudes connected with specific age groups? 3. To what extent does the VISTA experi- ence influence political attitude change? How are age and sex associated with vulnerability to attitude change? Obviously, people who enroll in movements such as VISTA represent a highly selective population. Hence, we are not proposing that conclusions drawn from these data are generalizable to other populiations. At the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological

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