ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the social and demographic factors that may influence the benevolence of different kinds of people who are geographically proximate to public elementary schools. The school's most distinguishing characteristic is that its programs are French immersion, which means that instruction is almost entirely in French from kindergarten to grade seven. The principal of one school that had sixty percent English as a Second Language students said that there were about 50 languages from 20 countries represented in the student population. The only thing that was tolerated was once a year students went on a field trip and they needed a couple of parents to come along to supervise. Neighbourhood socioeconomic status appears to have a strong effect on the extent of voluntarism observed in elementary schools. Capacity and opportunity for making donations are affected by what may be called socio-demographic factors that appear to increase or decrease the ability or occasion to give.
