Abstract
Participation in organized Extracurricular Activities has contributed to improve academic achievement. However, this does not happen in the same way; it depends on sex, age, or parental educational level. Our objective is to know the importance of these factor interactions’ in the explanation of academic achievement. The sample consisted of 1148 adolescents, aged between 12 and 18 years, 52% of whom were female. Participants completed the Extracurricular Activities questionnaire, and academic and sociodemographic data were collected. The results show that differences in academic achievement depend on the adolescent stage. In early adolescence, girls improve in academic achievement, as well as with better parental education, reading of books and activity duration. On the contrary, in the middle and late adolescence, academic achievement improves with not participating in collective sports and reduced activity breadth, although parental educational level follows the same trend as in the early adolescence. These results reinforce the evolutionary hypothesis of specialization in the choice of activities throughout adolescence. In this sense, some proposals for schools that advocate for greater integration of curricular and non-curricular elements are discussed.
Highlights
The class “extracurricular activities” (EA) constitutes a positive youth developmental asset (Durlak et al, 2010; Eccles and Gootman, 2002; Eisman et al, 2016; Farb and Matjasko, 2012; Mueller et al, 2011) and covers a broad range of categories that share some essential elements (Hansen et al, 2010)
Our results indicate that adolescents’ choices of EA participation are associated with academic achievement, as other investigations have shown (Badura et al, 2016; Bartko and Eccles, 2003; Eisman et al, 2016; Linver et al, 2009), but this association differs according to sex, age, type of activity, and parental education level
As the previous literature shows, boys participate more in sports activities while girls do more in artistic activities (Darling, 2005; Kleiner et al, 2004; Luthar et al, 2006), and participation is higher in early adolescence than in late adolescence (Denault and Poulin, 2009b, 2009a; Rose-Krasnor et al, 2006)
Summary
The class “extracurricular activities” (EA) constitutes a positive youth developmental asset (Durlak et al, 2010; Eccles and Gootman, 2002; Eisman et al, 2016; Farb and Matjasko, 2012; Mueller et al, 2011) and covers a broad range of categories that share some essential elements (Hansen et al, 2010). Competent adults supervise these activities, which often involve peer interaction They have regular attendance schedules, offer practical learning opportunities and enable young people to spend time engaged in their own interests (Hansen and Larson, 2007). Adolescents often develop meaningful relationships with their peers and their instructors This fact creates an appropriate context in which to develop identity, initiative, and social skills (Hirsch et al, 2011; Larson et al, 2006). These aspects help in theorizing about organized activities and contribute to different processes of adolescent development
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