Community service and political-moral identity in adolescents

This article presents a theoretical framework for understanding how community service affords opportunities for stimulating identity development in adolescents. Drawing on Erikson's (1968) writings, which stressed the socio-historical component of identity, we used Luckmann's (1991) scheme for parsing narratives into levels of transcendent identification. The narratives came from reflective essays of 132 Black parochial high school juniors who worked at a soup kitchen for the homeless as part of a school-based community service program. The majority of essays written at Time 1 (57.8%) and Time 2 (62.5%) could be scored at levels designated from ''little'' to ''bigger'' levels, and students who made transcendent statements at Time 1 and Time 2 tended to make ''higher'' level statements at Time 2 (z = 2.07, p < .05), thus suggesting developmental change. The results support the view that service experience can stimulate reflection on society's political organization and moral order.