Extracurricular Participation Among Adolescents fr

Authors: Daisy E Camacho Andrew J Fuligni

Publish Date: 2014/03/06

Volume: 44, Issue: 6, Pages: 1251-1262

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Abstract

Participation in organized afterschool activities could be especially beneficial for youth from immigrant backgrounds whose families often have little knowledge of American school systems The role of extracurricular involvement in the achievement and motivation of students from immigrant families was examined among 468 eleventh grade 524  female students from Asian American 444  European American 190  and Latino 365  backgrounds who varied in generational status first 25  second 524  third 226  and attended high school in the Los Angeles area Participants completed questionnaires regarding their extracurricular activities school belonging and intrinsic motivation Students’ grade point average GPA was obtained from official school records Controls included parental education ethnicity generational status gender school and the outcome variables in tenth grade First generation students were less likely to participate in academic activities than their third generation peers but overall there were few generational differences in participation Participation predicted achievement and engagement after accounting for tenth grade levels of educational adjustment Most notably although all students benefitted from participation the gain in GPA as a function of participation was greater for first generation than third generation students Results suggest that organized afterschool activities are particularly important for students in immigrant families providing them with additional experiences that contribute to academic achievementDEC participated in the formulation of the research questions performed the statistical analysis and interpretation of the data as well as helped draft the manuscript AJF conceived of the study and participated in its design and coordination interpretation of the data and helped draft the manuscript All authors read and approved the final manuscript

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