Leading Change to Ensure a Better World: College Students’ Participation in Community Service

We examined whether the effects of community service on college students’ engagement in social change and social generativity are conditional upon students’ demographic characteristics. We used data from the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership survey, which was administered at 70 four-year campuses in 2018. We used propensity score matching techniques to create a group of 13,981 students who participated in community service and matched them with a group of 13,981 students who did not participate in community service. The results suggest that the effects of community service on students’ engagement in social change are significant and positive regardless of gender, parental education, and disability; however, the effects are not uniform across race/ethnicity or sexual orientation. Similarly, the effects of community engagement on social generativity are significant and positive across parental education and disability, but not uniform across gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation.