Poster #65 - Extracurricular Involvement in the School-Age Period and Adolescent Problem Behavior Among Low-Income Youth

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

After a long day at school, children often look forward to spending time with friends before going home for the night. Thus, the late afternoon (3-6 PM) is an important time period for children but may expose them to risky situations. Low-income children tend to live in high-risk neighborhoods and have limited access to resources compared to their more advantaged peers (Halpern, 1999). Organized after-school extracurricular programs are believed to help with offsetting negative effects associated with poverty and associated stressors in low-income children’s lives (Posner & Vandell, 1994) by providing opportunities to engage in activities monitored by adults who may serve as role models. Engaging in such monitored activities might decrease the possibility of engaging in deviant behaviors that are more likely to occur without adult supervision. Although higher amounts of extracurricular involvement have been concurrently associated with lower levels of behavioral and emotional problems in the school-age years (Molinuevo et al., 2010) and adolescence (Hardaway et al., 2012), limited longitudinal data have found support for such relations from the school-age period to adolescence (Bohnert & Garber, 2007; Metsäpelto & Pulkkinen, 2011). Thus, the present study aimed to assess how extracurricular involvement in the school-age years was associated with children’s externalizing and internalizing behaviors in mid-adolescence using teacher reports of adolescent problem behavior.

Participants (N = 619) were from the Early Steps Multisite study, an experimental trial testing the efficacy of a family-centered intervention (i.e., Family Check-Up) to prevent substance use risk. Low-income children and parents were recruited at age 2 from WIC programs in and around Pittsburgh, PA, Eugene, OR, and Charlottesville, VA (Dishion et al., 2008). Children were randomly assigned to either a Family Check-Up or WIC services as usual and were assessed on 9 occasions between ages 2 and 14. Primary caregivers’ reports of children’s involvement in extracurricular activities (Rosenthal & Vandell, 1996) at ages 7.5, 8.5, and 9.5 were averaged and used as predictors of teacher reports of externalizing and internalizing behaviors at age 14 (Teacher Report Form, Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). In addition to intervention group, other covariates included children’s race and ethnicity, family income at ages 2 and 7.5, and primary caregiver reports of age 2 internalizing and externalizing problems.

Structural equation modeling in Mplus was used to assess associations between study variables (Figure 1). Although extracurricular involvement was not associated with later teacher reports of internalizing problems, higher levels of extracurricular involvement was associated with lower levels of teacher-reported externalizing problems at age 14 (β = -.116, p = .011) after accounting for all aforementioned covariates. This study confirms prior and largely concurrent research on associations between extracurricular involvement and youth behavioral problems, supporting the idea that such involvement gives children opportunities to engage in monitored activities after school thus precluding the development of behavioral problems. This study also expands upon prior findings by assessing such associations in a low-income sample, emphasizing the particular importance of extracurricular involvement for low-income youths’ behavioral development.

Authors

• Yiyao Zhou, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Julia S. Feldman, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Chelsea Weaver Krug, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melvin N. Wilson, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel S. Shaw, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author