Freiwilliges Engagement – ein bildungsbiografischer Erfahrungsraum

The development of modern societies depends on a wide variety of an individual’s social commitment beyond gainful employment that can be subsumed under the term “volunteering”. Analysing empirical interviews, this article outlines the range and the transition of subjective educational biographic meanings of volunteering from the perspective of the volunteers. Thereby the appropriateness of qualitative longitudinal studies for specific research-purposes of long-term educational biographic change processes can be revealed. According to a systematic consideration of significant individual and collective contexts of volunteering, there will be conclusive reflections about its double-dynamic structure.