Factors affecting philanthropic behavior of Jewish adolescents

A field study of children's philanthropic behavior, focusing specifically on the giving patterns of adolescents, was conducted in a Jewish school in the United States over a 5-month period. Classrooms were observed by using ethnographic methods, and a written questionnaire was administered to seventh- through ninth-graders (N = 48). Monetary records from 23 class sessions were analyzed. Giving to charity was inversely related to age, with the oldest students in the school giving the least. Both teachers of adolescents and the majority of the adolescents attributed this finding to the dispositions of the givers rather than to contextual factors in the school or to the nature of the charitable enterprise.