Charity and social redistribution: Quantitative and qualitative perspectives

Materials from research project including transcriptions of interviews and survey data; in-depth interviews with 41 individuals from different occupations, including public sector administrators, university lecturers, social care workers, home-keepers, mature students and retirees. The semi-structured interviews consisted of two parts, lasting on average 2.25 hours. The first part asked the interviewees to recount their life history, describing the twists and turns in their lives, their personal goals and their everyday practices. In the second part, they recalled significant acts of giving and volunteering, describing their feelings and motivations. Every time interviewees mentioned emotions and morality, they were prompted to go on talking and to give illustrations. A picture emerged of how they have had to navigate their way through life, dovetailing and prioritising various moral concerns and commitments in an environment that they could not control. It is in this context that their charitable acts are understood and explained.<p>This project is part of a programme of research being undertaken by the Centre for Giving and Philanthropy (CGAP) that seeks to investigate quantitative and qualitative perspectives of charity and social redistribution. It is the second of two, University of Southampton based projects exploring charitable redistribution in the UK. The first project comprised the building of an extensive database of UK charities to enable quantitative analysis of charities within the UK. This project takes a qualitative perspective to examine and explore, at a local level, some of the emerging themes from subsequent quantitative analysis of the Project 1 database relating to the distribution of charitable resources. </p>本研究项目资料涵盖访谈转录文本与调查数据；研究团队对41名来自不同职业群体的个体开展深度访谈，职业覆盖公共部门行政管理人员、大学讲师、社会护理工作者、家庭照料者、成年学生及退休人员。 本次访谈采用半结构化形式，分为两个环节，单场访谈平均时长为2.25小时。第一环节要求受访者回溯个人人生历程，讲述其人生中的波折起伏、个人目标与日常行事模式。第二环节则请受访者回忆自身曾参与的重要赠予与志愿行为，描述其行为背后的情感体验与动机。每当受访者提及情感与道德相关内容时，访谈者会引导其进一步展开阐述并提供具体例证。最终研究勾勒出一幅图景：受访者如何在无法自主掌控的外部环境中应对人生，统筹协调各类道德关切与责任承诺并确定其优先级。他们的慈善行为正是在这一语境下得到理解与阐释的。 本项目隶属于英国慈善与社会再分配定量与定性研究计划，该计划由南安普顿大学赠予与慈善研究中心（Centre for Giving and Philanthropy，CGAP）主导开展。本项目是南安普顿大学开展的两项英国慈善再分配研究中的第二项。第一项研究构建了覆盖全英慈善组织的大型数据库，以支撑英国境内慈善组织的定量分析。本项目则采用定性研究视角，在地方层面深入剖析由第一项研究数据库后续定量分析中衍生出的、与慈善资源分配相关的若干核心议题。