Out-of-School Time Among Youth from Resilient Families: Patterns of Participation and Adolescent Development

Background: Organized activities during out-of-school time (OST) – including extracurricular and afterschool programs – are commonly associated with stronger psychosocial adjustment in adolescence. Recent research has focused on multiple dimensions of participation, including breadth and duration. However, less research has specifically addressed OST participation among historically disadvantaged youth.

Methods: Using data from the Future of Families and Child Well-being Study, this study examined multiple dimensions of OST participation between ages nine and fifteen years: type (sports, performance, clubs, academic clubs, and religious activities), breadth (0-5 activity types), change in breadth between ages nine and fifteen (-5 to +5), and duration patterns between ages nine and fifteen (nonparticipation, stopped, joined late, ongoing). Multiple regression assessed whether OST measures were associated with developmental outcomes at age fifteen: internalizing symptoms, and externalizing symptoms (Child Behavior Checklist), social skills (Social Skills Rating System), and psychosocial functioning (EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Wellbeing), after controlling for age nine outcomes and demographics.

Results: By measures of type, sports, academic clubs, and religious activities at age nine were found to predict developmental outcomes and symptomology at age fifteen. Sports were associated with lower psychosocial functioning problems (B=-.04) and stronger social skills (B=.04), while academic clubs were associated with higher internalizing symptoms (B=.04).

Greater breadth at age nine was associated with lower functioning issues (B=-.01) and higher social skills (B=.01). Increasing breadth between ages nine and fifteen years was associated with lower internalizing (B=-.01) and externalizing symptoms (B=-.01), lower psychosocial functioning issues (B=-.01) and increased social skills (B=.02).

The most novel results concerned duration patterns. Though ongoing participation between ages nine and fifteen associated with stronger outcomes, so was joining an activity between ages nine and fifteen. For example, persistent sports participation between ages nine and fifteen was associated with lower internalizing symptoms (B=-.08), lower psychosocial functioning issues (B=-.12) and increased social skills (B=.15). However, similar associations were found for joining a sport between nine and fifteen, including lower internalizing symptoms (B=-.07), lower psychosocial functioning issues (B=-.08), and increased social skills (B=.11). Dropping out of activities yielded outcomes similar to nonparticipation.

Conclusions and Implications: This study contributes to adolescent development and social work literature by documenting positive associations of OST in a large sample of historically disadvantaged youth, while also highlighting how increases in breadth and joining activities even in middle adolescence predict positive outcomes in similar populations. Although many youth limit participation to fewer activities during adolescence, social workers working with youth could facilitate a breadth of activities in both early and middle adolescence. Likewise, social workers could encourage youth to join activities at any stage, rather than not participate at all. School policy should better enable a consistent breadth of OST participation – especially for the most vulnerable adolescents. Additionally, funding streams for OST were previously diverse, but now increasingly limited for historically disadvantaged youth and communities under the current administration. Future research is needed to assess specific practices within programs that support adolescent development, as well as policies that facilitate access for historically marginalized youth.