Southampton Seminar Series

 

Professor Yaojun Li, from the University of Manchester, looks at three types of altruistic behaviour: joining, helping and giving. The seminar discusses how socio-economic and cultural factors affect these, exploring both absolute and relative rates of giving. Yaojun's research shows that rates of participation are generally high, but falling, although amounts given to charitable causes remained constant in spite of the economic crises. While people in higher class and income positions tend to give more in absolute terms, class differences in relative giving are negligible and there is an inverse relationship between income and relative giving. The interaction between class and income shows that people in higher class but lower income were more generous than their well-off class peers. On the whole, British people are generous, but a key challenge is persuading those who are well of to contribute more. This seminar discusses the challenges for government, employers and fundraising organisations if our society, as well as charitable giving, is to be made Bigger.

 

Location: Murray Building (Building 58), Room 2097, University of Southampton

 

 

 

David Horton Smith  (Boston College, USA and University of East Anglia) discusses the development of the organised global field, and emerging academic discipline, of altruistics. David devised “altruistics” to refer to all the phenomena of this field, including philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, third sector, voluntary sector, civil society (sector), social economy, volunteering, associations, and nonprofit organisations. He focuses on academic journals and researcher associations founded since ARNOVA (Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action) in 1971.  

 

David is one of the world’s leading scholars on the voluntary, nonprofit sector. He is in the UK as Honorary Visiting Professor of Altruistics and Community Engagement at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (as a U.S. Fulbright Commission Senior Specialist Distinguished Lecturer). His academic base is Boston College, in the USA, where he is a Research and Emeritus Professor of Sociology. His research, over nearly 50 years, ranges across the fields of nonprofit organisation, and especially voluntary association, structure and operations, the scope and prevalence of associations across territories, the impact of associations and volunteering, misconduct/ deviance in and by associations, altruism and other influences on volunteering, and defining the terms and concepts of the interdisciplinary nonprofit/altruistics field. He can be reached at: dhortonsmith@hotmail.com

 

Location: Murray Building (Building 58), Room 4121, University of Southampton