Le competenze di cittadinanza dei volontari del Servizio Civile Universale. Uno studio empirico

The paper presents the results of the research on citizenship competences of civil serviceoperators, carried out with the participation of the Third Sector National Forum and withArci Civil Service. The issue of citizenship competences and their enhancement is consideredcrucial both from the policy level and from the point of view of international studies.Eleven focus groups were conducted, aimed at volunteer operators, distributed in ten differentItalian regions, for a total of 56 participants. All the discursive material producedwas recorded and transcribed and made suitable to be subsequently subjected to statisticalanalysis, conducted in particular through correspondence analysis and cluster analysis. Thechoice of the method, and consequently of the tool, for the treatment and analysis of thedata arose from a semiotic theoretical perspective. The data obtained from the analysis andinterpretation of the speeches produced in the focus groups tell us that competence is mainlyassumed as a synonym of knowledge, especially for what concerns civic competences. Evenwith respect to the meaning and role that the volunteer seems to assign to communicationcompetences, the control of emotions and interpersonal skills, it seems necessary to problematize the development of these competences, considering how much the activities relatedto the world of volunteering have a high relational and emotional content.