Exploring the Roles of Extracurricular Activity Quantity and Quality in the Educational Resilience of Vulnerable Adolescents: Variable- and Pattern-Centered Approaches

Abstract

This longitudinal study examines how extracurricular activity involvement contributes to "educational resilience"-the unexpected educational attainments of adolescents who are otherwise vulnerable to curtailed school success due to personal- and social-level risks. Educationally vulnerable youth characterized by significant risks and an absence of assets were identified during early adolescence (approximately age 14) using measures of academic motivation, achievement, and mental health as well as family, school, and peer contexts. Using a mixture of variable- and pattern-centered analytic techniques, we investigate how both the total amount time that vulnerable youth spent in positive extracurricular activities and the specific pattern of their extracurricular activity involvement during late adolescence (approximately age 17) predict their subsequent enrollment in college during early adulthood (up through approximately age 21). Educational resilience was predicted uniquely by some, but not all, activity patterns. These results suggest that positive extracurricular activity settings afford vulnerable youth developmentally appropriate experiences that promote educational persistence and healthy development.

Fig. 1

S-I to S-VII refer to self-theory profiles; W-I to W-XII refer to world-theory profiles. ASR = adjusted standardized residuals. The light-, medium-, and dark-shaded cells along the main diagonal highlight positive, a mix of positive and negative, and negative lifespace configurations, respectively. The light- and dark-shaded cells in the off-diagonal areas highlight lifespace configurations dominated by either positive or negative profiles, respectively (e.g., youth with an S-V/W-VII lifespace configuration are characterized by low academic self-concepts, negative perceptions of families and peers, yet positive perceptions of the school environment). The “vulnerable youth” in this study come from both the dark-shaded cells along the main diagonal (i.e., youth with completely negative lifespace configurations) and the dark-shaded cells in the off-diagonal areas (i.e., youth with lifespace configurations that are not “completely” negative but that are dominated by negative self- or world-theory profiles).

Fig. 2

1 = little-to-no participation, 2 = less than once a month, 3 = at least once a week, 4 = more than once a week, and 5 = usually every day. Sport (n = 140), sport-school (n = 69), sport-volunteer (n = 73), sport-work (n = 107), high engaged (n = 83), school (n = 144), volunteer (n = 98), work (n = 150), low engaged (n = 147).