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The evolution of Spain towards a real democratic system, beyond economic considerations, cannot omit the importance of building a real civic culture. Generating civic virtues is directly linked to the establishment of associative networks. There are a variety of reasons why voluntary associations play an important role as explanatory variables in order to understand the generation of social capital and civic virtue among individuals, and therefore to broaden civil society and to improve the quality of political culture. We will distinguish three main types of political culture variables: trust, politicisation and sociopolitical involvement. The database of the European Social Survey 2002-2003 will be used as the main statistical source for a comparative analysis among four Southern European countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece), taking Spain as the reference country. Adapted from the source document.

The current article presents, as the main goal, a description of the specific involvement of women in voluntary organizations in Spain during the last years. The potentially different inclusion of them when comparing with men, as well as the female concentration on characterized types of associations will be underlined. Moreover, and beyond that, we show a general description of how women are connecting to civil society and civic life in Spain. In this sense, we analyze different variables as the importance of being engaged in voluntary organizations, the knowledge of participatory channels or the level of interest to be part of a voluntary association. In addition, we offer a comparative perspective of women volunteering regarding to other forms of conventional and non-conventional socio-political engagement. Adapted from the source document.