Feeling rules, micro hierarchies and emotion work in social volunteering: Preliminary analysis of and findings from a pilot study

This paper draws on material from a PhD project that qualitatively
explores the social volunteer work conducted by the Danish volunteer
organization Children’s Adult - friends. Children’ Adult - friends
specializes in matching children from single parent households with
a resourceful adult of the same gender. The main target group for
Children’s Adult - friends are children with little or no contact to their
father or mother.
The majority of research relating to the third sector in Denmark is
quanti tative correlations of movement patterns in Danes voluntary
efforts. This has meant that the qualitative studies of what
volunteering means have been lacking behind more survey - based
studies of the "voluntary sector" at macro level. Few scholars has
emphas ized the need to study volunteerism as a social phenomenon,
to show how caring in a voluntary setting differs from both the
private and public care systems. Drawing on a pilot study based on
participatory observations and 15 qualitative interviews with
org anizational actors, parents, volunteers and children with a focus
on motives, experiences and feelings, this study high lights the
adult - friend relationship as a specific form of sociality.
In this presentation, I will shed light on the findings from this study,
with a focus on why the adult - friend relation has its own emotional
script, which differs from both public and private care systems.
Combined with a sociology of emotions perspective, I wish to show
the feeling rules, the micro hierarchies and the emotion work in this
type of voluntary work. The first analysis will be at the
organizational level and address feeling rules. The second analysis
will show how the actors incorporate and experience these feeling
rules in their relationship with each other to find a suitable
attachment - style.